"When there's trouble in the jungle, Monkey Truck knows what to do. " and the cute little truck zooms off to save a bug from a very large elephant foot. This book has BIG WORDS, funny expressions (banana gas) and a perfect rhythm paced for little listeners. With words like rev, rev, toot, Vroom, Vroom kids were reading along with me when I shared this with first graders. Michael Slack has done a fabulous job making a silly monkey/truck into an jungle action hero framed against a lush jungle background.
Mr. Stack sent this book to me a few monthes ago after I reviewed The Flim-Flam Fairies , illustrated by him. I took Monkey Truck to school and shared it then brought it home and Groovy Girl and I read it. She laughed and had a great time exploring the illustrations. Then the book sat on my to-review shelf for a few days...days turned into weeks and then one day in January I sat down to write the review but couldn't locate the book. I couldn't figure out what happened to it and was sad cuz it had such a beautiful inscription from Mr. Slack, who by the way should win a prize just for coolest last name.
Then one night I came up to tuck Groovy Girl into bed and found her reading to her doll, Jaime. She was reading Yoko by Rosemary Wells. Hmmm. Light Bulb. "Groovy Girl, do you remember Monkey Truck?" "Yeah" and right there it was in a basket of books she's been reading to Jaime. Ohhhhh. Enough said. Michael-I'm very sorry I didn't get the book reveiwed faster but just so you know....dolls and girls are loving it too! This is the perfect book for an active PreK-1st grade crowd. This is his first attempt at writing and illustrating together and I hope he is working on more, which he probably will not send me after I lost track of this one.
Check out his fabulous website, Michael Slack, and this awesome video:
Other great thoughts on this book:
BoingBoing
Jen Robinson's Book Page
Buy it from an IndieBound (I am an associate but have yet to receive a dime)
Monkey Truck
Friday Five: The First Week in October
18 hours ago
1 comment:
Books loved enough to be shared with dolls...Priceless :)
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