Featured as an "Adorable Animal Board Book" - Prima Baby
Praise for "Monkey World: An A-Z of Occupations":
Selected by the American Bookseller Association for the Fall 2008 Children's Indie Next
List
"With the same simple-yet-lovely art that made Count the Birdies and ABC such winning
board books, Monkey World adds fantastic rhyming words to the merriment. Parents will
not get bored by this one, even after hundreds of readings!" --Suzanne Perry, The Secret
Garden Bookshop, Seattle, WA
Seattle Magazine's Best of 2008
"Best Example of Monkeys Engaged in Nontraditional Employment "
Our little evolutionary cousins aren't just cymbal players for organ griders anymore. These
days, monkeys are astronauts, hula hoopers and ventriloquists - at least they are in
Monkey World: A - Z of Occupations (Simply Read Books: 2008), local artist Matthew
Porter's newest storybook that takes kids on a alphabetical tour of the working world. We
grown-ups love it, too - his images appeal to the primate in all of us.
Seattle Weekly
Matthew Porter’s new show takes us into a bizarre world in which goateed monkeys play
bass, pirate monkeys battle giant sea monsters, and janitor monkeys cheerfully mop the
floor. All these adorable acrylic paintings are from his eponymous Monkey World: An A–Z
of Occupations ($16.95, Simply Read Books), an illustrated children’s volume that aims to
teach the alphabet via unconventional jobs like snake charming—my college major,
btw—and ventriloquism. Porter’s giggle-inducing exhibit can be enjoyed by adults and
children, but the latter may need a gentle reminder later that becoming a gangster isn’t the
wisest career path to embark on. Unless you’re a monkey. - ERIKA HOBART
" From Artist to Zookeeper, Porter's big-eyed monkeys sport a dizzying
array of costumes. With one image per page, a simple caption beneath and the first letter highlighted in color, these monkeys look simultaneously modern and folksy as
they course through the alphabet. Using a mix of bold and muted tones and black
outlines, Porter paints on wood, and the grain shows through, giving each
illustration a subtle texture and a handmade feel. The back page says this work
is "An A to Z of occupations," but this gathering of characters is more playful
(pirate, queen and snake charmer are in the mix) than aspirational.
While not a core alphabet title, a fun selection for monkey fans." - Kirkus Reviews
CM REVIEW:
First as a parent, and now as a grandparent, I've found it amazing to watch (listen to?) my children and grandchildren transform themselves from audibly wordless beings into little "word sound machines" as their spoken vocabularies suddenly seem to explode. Though Monkey World ABC's format is that of a board book, it is definitely not a "first" book for the toddler set. Instead, its introduction should likely wait until a child has a foundational vocabulary, one to which you as a parent or caregiver wish to assist the child in expanding.
Calling itself "An A to Z of occupations", Monkey World ABC's contents simply consist of full-colour illustrations of 26 "costumed" monkeys, each representing a "job" whose name begins with one of the letters of the alphabet. The text is limited to the one or two words that are needed to identify each monkey's job, with the targeted letter presented in colour and in upper case.
The occupations Porter offers range from those the children's parents or neighbours could possibly occupy, such as "Chef", "Janitor", and "Yoga Instructor", to the much more fanciful, like "King", "Lion Tamer", "Pirate', "Queen" "Snake Charmer" and "Wrestler." A child's vocabulary will not always necessarily match the word(s) Porter has used in his job labels. For example, I can see a child substituting "Cook" for Porter's '"Chef" or "Super Hero" for his "Wrestler". For me (and likely the book's intended audience), the hardest occupation to identify via just the "uniformed" monkey was "Engine Driver". Given that the Monkey is wearing blue bib overalls and is holding a pocket watch and a shovel, I concluded that he's probably part of a railway train crew from the days of steam locomotives. (Time for a history lesson?)
Overall, Monkey World ABC is a worthy home or library purchase, but it does have one small fault. Though Porter employs gender neutral terms, such as "Firefighter" and [Police] "Officer", in the naming of occupations, it is not until the eight letter, "H", that youngsters will see their first female monkey, and then it is a "Hula Hooper". In total, only eight of the illustrations reveal the job-holder to be female. Should there be a revised edition of Monkey World ABC, Porter could correct this gender imbalance.
Recommended.
