Monkey Puzzle

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After a parrot is produced, Little Monkey tells butterfly that his mum 'leaps about'. Once more butterfly gets it wrong and produces a frog. 'Brown fur' is Little Monkey's next clue but the creature hanging upside down in a tree isn't his mum; 'she's not nearly so small' explains little monkey. Also look out for jigsaw puzzles featuring some of the animals from the story, such as the elephant or butterfly. Puzzles can develop children’s problem-solving skills, as well as their understanding of shape and size. Unfortunately, the baby monkey doesn’t give a full description of his mother and so butterfly takes the baby monkey to the wrong animal over and over again. When the baby monkey finally explains that he looks like his mother, the puzzle is nearly solved. While Julia Donaldson is best known for The Gruffalo, she has written many other children’s books that are worth sharing with children. Monkey Puzzleis a very cleverly written story which is full of humour but also introduces children to a wide range of animals as well as the concept of caterpillars changing into butterflies. The little monkey gets more and more frustrated as the story unfolds and little ones love joining in with the repetition, “No, no, no! That’s a …”. Axel Scheffler’s trademark illustrations add to the humour and we love the expressions on the animals’ faces.

Choose one of the animals on the word mat (see Resources below). Then, make up some clues for a friend to help them identify the animal that you are thinking of. Investigate environmental issues linked to jungles and rainforests. How can people help to protect them?The butterfly’s babies don’t look like him. Can you explain why this is? What does metamorphosis mean? In the summer, you could also carry out a caterpillar and butterfly hunt and talk to children about their lifecycle. Discover more about the animals in the story. With older children, search the internet for information by keying in such questions as ‘where do bats live?’.

The Story: A butterfly offers to help a little monkey findhis/her mum. But every time the monkey describes Mumthe butterfly introduceshim/her to a different animal. Finally the monkey tells the butterfly that Mum looks like him/her which surprises the butterfly as her babies don’t look like her! Finally the monkey is reunited with a monkey. But is it the monkey that he’s looking for?… Look at the patterns and textures on the animals in the story. Investigate what camouflage means and how this helps animals. I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married.You can also use this as a learning opportunity to talk about what children should do if ever they were lost and whom to approach for help. I also continued to write “grown-up” songs and perform them in folk clubs and on the radio, and have recently released two CDs of these songs. Look at the plants and flowers in the illustrations. Can you identify similar plants using reference books? This leads butterfly on a wild goose, or more appropriately to begin with, a wild elephant, chase. Little monkey has to tell him that it isn't his mum and he gives butterfly another clue - 'her tail coils round the trees'.

My real breakthrough was THE GRUFFALO, again illustrated by Axel. We work separately - he’s in London and I’m in Glasgow - but he sends me letters with lovely funny pictures on the envelopes. The baby monkey is missing his mother, something many children will have experienced, and they may even have been lost. Talking to children about their experiences may help children learn some vocabulary relating to feelings such as ‘worry’, ‘anxious’, ‘nervous’ and ‘scared’. The story is wonderful to read and enjoy simply as it is, or if you want to use the book to inspire some conversation I have always found Burt is quite happy to talk about the friendly characters that Axel Scheffler brings to life in the illustrations. You could use the story to talk about different animals, introduce some mathematics by counting each animals’ legs or do some biology and talk about metamorphosis and the lifecycle of a butterfly. You could also explore language together by describing each other or thinking of a better description for little monkey’s mum. Look at the different types of punctuation shown in the story. Could you use some of these in your own writing?Fortunately the little monkey isn’t alone for long. A well-meaning and friendly Butterfly appears and comforts him, then they set out to find the little monkey’s mum, together. Poor Butterfly keeps finding animals that fit the little monkey’s description but they aren’t quite right. The story was great fun to read, with lots of opportunity for children to interact with the story, such as declaring what each animal is. As always with this collection of titles from Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler which includes the critically acclaimed 'The Gruffalo', the illustration is vibrant and brings to life the animal characters. The characters are all which the children can relate to; the monkey in search of its mother could be the children themselves, and the helpful adult butterfly can be likened to police, teachers or other adults who would help the child. Choose an animal and write a detailed description of it to help the butterfly find it straight away. Before Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country; the best one was in Italian about pasta. This book can be used to encourage children to look for particular items and to count them. For example, can they spot the crocodile in the river or the caterpillars on the leaves? Or can they find the smallest and largest animals in the story?