Putting the Monkeys to Bed by Gennifer Choldenko (review)

“Sam’s not ready to go to bed, and neither are his monkeys.” Despite Mama’s insistence that Sam settle down for the night, he’d much rather “smash and bash and crash-crash-crash” with his trio of toy monkeys, who, when Mama is out of sight, are as active as Sam himself. Inevitably, a second parental warning comes; Sam begins to calm down, but this time his mind is in overdrive, thinking of all kinds of questions he has for his mother. After she promises to answer them the next day (a clever closing author’s note provides the answers for interested listeners), he really does begins to settle; unfortunately, the monkeys are raring to go, and now Sam is the quieter rather than the quietee, going through a series of silly songs, recitations, and a book before the monkeys settle. Familiar bedtime themes woven into this tale call to mind the simian antics of Christelow’s Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed and the energetic-turned-exhausted narrator in Rathmann’s 10 Minutes Till Bedtime (BCCB 12/98). The narration is a little long, but it offers a pleasing progression through the stages of bedtime towards eventual slumber, and there’s a frisky tone to the text (“They jump and bump and hop-hop-hop”) that makes for enjoyable reading aloud as well as listening. The playful ink and watercolor illustrations are reminiscent of David Catrow in their exaggerated lines and deliberately intense colors, and the freckle-faced, red-headed protagonist is at home in the slightly chaotic spreads. Little ones full of their own bedtime excuses will take a shine to Sam’s primate-intensive shift towards slumber.