Common Sense Media Review
By Regan McMahon
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Zany, interactive tale of trying to find and count monkeys.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 3+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Read
What's the Story?
An unseen narrator tells readers to COUNT THE MONKEYS, but the animals have been scared off by a king cobra. Kids get more instructions on each spread-- such as "raise your hand," "cover your eyes," "make a loud roar!" and "move your hand in a zigzag" -- to fend off various scary critters, from "4 grizzly bears" to "5 bee swarms" to "7 wolves," in the continuing search for the monkeys. After much counting craziness and chaos, readers reach the end of the book finding "0 monkeys" to count -- until they turn the last page and find a horde of them on the endpapers.
Is It Any Good?
Count the Monkeys is a funny, clever picture book that plays with the traditional counting motif by making the story about never finding the animals intended to be counted. Instead, readers get to count all sorts of other creatures and people that have scared off the poor monkeys. It's a silly, zany, and action-packed quest, with lots of mishaps and missteps, culminating in "10 polka-dotted rhinoceroses with bagpipes and bad breath," that's guaranteed to provoke giggles, if not guffaws.
Kids will love the expressive, comical illustrations (including "9 lumberjacks" eating pancakes), and the wacky instructions add a playful interactive element -- as if readers' gestures will truly lead to finding the monkeys.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about counting books and why kids love them. What's fun about them? How is this one different from most?
What's funny about monkeys? Why are they often in picture books?
Make up a counting story of your own. What people or animals will you have in it?
Book Details
- Author :
- Illustrator : Kevin Cornell
- Genre : Counting
- Topics : Numbers and Letters , Animals ( Wild Animals )
- Book type : Fiction
- Publisher : Disney-Hyperion
- Publication date : June 25, 2013
- Publisher's recommended age(s) : 3 - 6
- Award : ALA Best and Notable Books
- Last updated : October 1, 2025
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