Three Little Monkeys Ride Again, by Quentin Blake and Emma Chichester Clark, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart

The Three Little Monkeys are everso naughty, and a complete delight. Quentin Blake, as author, and Emma Chichester Clark, as illustrator, are enjoying themselves hugely here, as they have with their other Three Little Monkeys stories. 

 

This time Hilda Snibs, wearer of wonderful hats, is taking Tim, Sam and Lulu for some ‘peace and quiet’ at her elderly mother’s house in the countryside. ‘But the three little monkeys very soon began to feel bored’. Uh-oh, we think, …  and of course monkey mayhem ensues, things broken and mess spectacular made. 

We book audience are torn between delight at the wild naughtiness of kinds we’d never dare do … and the looks of horror and embarrassment and upset on dear Hilda and her mother’s faces. How can this possibly end happily? It does, I promise. Even if there are still ducks in the sink, and frogs in the soup, and pondweed everywhere.  

Who could resist those naughty monkeys? Not me!

The Rights of the Reader - Joan Lennon

I need to come clean:  I've not read the book - just the poster.*  And, to begin with, it was the art that drew my attention (big Quentin Blake fan - but then, it would be hard not to be!)  But when I got past the pictures, I was intrigued by the text.  It has a gentleness to it - a quiet acknowledgement of how different we all are - of how there isn't one correct way to do things.  I would probably have titled it something like The "It's Okay" of the Reader - which is of course rubbish - but Daniel Pennac means what he says.  

Rights.

The full book is now on my reading list (are there pictures?) but in the meantime, what are your thoughts on the Rights of the Reader?

Is there anything you would like to add?
Is there anything you would like to take away?
Is there anything you would like to modify?


* I got this jpg of it here - a librarian's blog - thank you Melliber!

Joan Lennon's website.
Joan Lennon's blog.
And a shiny new website for Joan Lennon's YA novel Silver Skin.