Monkey Truck: 12/06/15

Monkey Truck by Michael Slack is about a strange monkey-truck hybrid who goes about the jungle helping out all his friends.

There's a definite appeal in the bright illustrations and the general wackiness of the situation. Imagine a monkey who is also a truck and runs on "banana gas."

Eventually the Monkey Truck gets the chance to not only help his friends, but save them. See, there's a tsunami coming and he has the engine and cargo space to save them all.

But that's also the problem with the book. I realize this book came out two months before the Japanese quake and tsunami but at the rate the library gets new books, the book showed up on the new shelf right after. That's part of why I've held on to this review for so long.

So rather than just enjoying the surreal goofiness of the art you can use the book to talk about natural disasters and how to prepare and how to survive them. Talk about the types of storms or events are likely in your area. Talk about what to do as preparation. Talk about evacuation if needed. Talk about emergency services.

Four stars

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