Time Off: Little Chimp's Big Day by Lisa Schroeder

IN THE JUNGLE,
IN THE TREE,
SITS A LITTLE
CHIMPANZEE.
MOTHER SAID SHE'D BE RIGHT BACK.
BUT NOW THE BRANCH SNAPS
WITH A CRACK...

Whoops! Little Chimpanzee looks around, but Mom is nowhere in sight. Still... it is kinda interesting down here on the jungle floor.

And soon Little Chimp is off on his first grand adventure. He finds a jungle stream and tries to cross on a stepping stone when--the stone turns out to be the nice wide back of Hippo Baby and Little Chimp enjoys a free float downstream. But then his "boat" hears his daddy calling, and Little Chimp has to disembark in a hurry, Where can that mommy be? But a curious little chimpanzee has a short attention span and soon finds more new things to explore. He swings on vines, snacks on handy bananas, and dodges a leopard lying on a tree branch, all the while wondering Where is my mommy?

Of course, in Lisa Schroeder's Little Chimp's Big Day (Sterling, 2010) Little Chimp is the only one who doesn't know where Mother is. Illustrator Lisa McCue has her following along on Little Chimp's adventures, peeking through the leafy fronds on the jungle floor, hiding along the river bank, and following through the trees, until at last the little wanderer finds his way home and right into her waiting lap.

It's a pleasant excursion into the evergreen theme of the little runaway getting his first taste of being on his own, all well within the watchful eyes of his mother. Schroeder, known for her young adult novels, here provides a comforting outing for those little ones just contemplating their first solo steps into adventure in the wide world. A new tale to pair with Margaret Wise Brown's classic The Runaway Bunny.