Book Reviews: Monkey With a Tool Belt and the Noisy Problem

In order for this blog not to simply be a "here's what I did today" thing, I need to broaden my topics a bit.  Books are pretty good direction to go, I think.  We started reading to James literally from day one and we are very happy that he asks to have books read to him and that he'll even happily sit and "read" his books by himself for extended periods of time.

As far as Thomas goes, we've not been reading to him as regularly, though we've been making an effort to sit him up on our laps while we are reading to James.  I think the reason we've not been reading to Thomas as much is because we've gotten so used to James being so interested and engaged with books for so long.  Thomas isn't very good at telling us which books he likes, or making the noises for different animals we encounter.  That's no excuse, though.  We are doing better about this than we were a couple months ago.

Anyway, between our own precarious piles of petite, precious books (sorry, it's late.  I couldn't help it) and our regular trips to the library we have seen lots of books from the wonderful to the nauseating to the just plain bad.  I don't know why some of these books are even published.

It's funny too, seeing how books seem to change periodically in terms of types of stories and illustrations.  I'll jump ahead of myself here and say that the proliferation of non sequiturs, mixed-media illustrations, and over-the-top craziness by characters found in so many books from the 90s through maybe the early part of the last decade get old real quick.  More on some of those another time.

So for the first review, I'll cover one of our favorite books by one of our favorite authors.  Monkey with a Tool Belt and the Noisy Problem.

Chris Monroe is a Duluth-based author who is also known for her off-beat comic Violet Days that is all about her experiences growing up, strange stories and other facts that may or may not be true.  Here's a taste:

She also does numerous posters and illustrations for groups and events around Duluth.  It is always a treat to see something that she's illustrated because everything she does is full of whimsy.  She definitely included that whimsy in her Monkey with a Tool Belt books.  Now there is certainly some silliness that were the rest of the book not so well done could get a little annoying, but her style is totally engaging and a lot of fun.

Chico Bon Bon is our protagonist in this series of three books.  Chico Bon Bon is a monkey, a monkey with a tool belt.

Chico stumbles across adventures in and around his tree house and needs to solve problems that this not-very-mechanically-inclined dad wouldn't handle very well.  As you can see, Chico has every tool a monkey would ever need, and is able to take care of any problems he runs into.

Now Monroe's work will probably never be found hanging in a fine art museum, but I love them.  The comic-strip nature plus all of the little details she includes make the books extra charming.  There are so many details that it is hard to not discover something new each read and that keeps the book fresh each time through.  That freshness is something that so many other books lack.  If there is one complaint I have (and it's minor), it is when dialogue moves to speech bubbles.  This is a problem in some other books too, and is a pain because without the indications of who is talking I feel like it can be a little confusing to kids that I am reading this to... without doing voices.  I guess I am ok doing voices to a point, but I'd rather not.

On the other hand, the stories are so sweet and the "I'll have to build her one" line at the bottom of the page above make me more than happy to put up with minor gripes.  Chico is kind and thoughtful, things that I value quite a bit.  I think Chico would be a pretty great monkey to have as a friend or neighbor.  Besides, if he was a neighbor, he'd probably invite us over to use his game room, and disco.

Inevitably, Chico has to solve some big problem with his tools and we get to see this monkey in action.

I won't give away too much of what is going on in this book, so if you want to know just what's going on, you'll have to find the book yourself.  I can't recommend the Monkey with a Tool Belt books enough.  There are two others that we both have, "Monkey With a Tool Belt," and "Monkey with a Tool Belt and the Seaside Shenanigans,"  but I think I can say confidently that Noisy Problem is our favorite.

Overall, I give this book three bananas up.