Monkey Time

Hall (Little i) playfully juggles the ideas of tracking time and counting in a book that also introduces tropical rainforest animals, seen on the periphery of the pages and described in a concluding note. Hall’s trademark collages of painted and cut paper art magnify the quirky conceptual story, portraying angular Monkey at the center of a clock face, his hand chasing minutes (which resemble smiley face emojis with legs, one in a hat) around the perimeter, one minute at a time, until 60 of them appear. The feisty, fast-moving minute characters narrate the spontaneous text, challenging the “slowpoke” marsupial to chase them around the clock while taunting, “I bet you can’t catch a minute, Monkey!” When Monkey at last snags the final minute of the hour, the others must dissuade him from a peculiar impulse—eating it—before, in a wry visual pun, the minutes fly away. Monkey’s arms don’t work in the same way that two hands do on an actual clock, which may confound kids interpreting the timepiece motif literally. But a high-level introduction of temporal considerations, not true time telling, is the book’s focus, and whimsy and humor—epitomized by the exuberant minutes—take center stage. Ages 4–8. [em](Feb.) [/em]