Forbidden Fruit! Maybe. . . by Chris Haughton

One morning Mama Monkey lays down a mandate!

"DO NOT GO DOWN TO THE MANGO TREE!!"<

Mama knows: "There Be Tigers!"

And she doesn't want her little ones to be tiger teatime hors d'oeuvres! It's like the old cautionary tale about not putting beans in noses. Now all the little monkeys can think of is the mango tree!

They agree!

"IT'S A PITY! I LOVE MANGOES!"

One little monkey thinks MAYBE it would be all right to just look at the mangoes.

"THAT'D BE OK, RIGHT?"

Quietly they slip through the treetops to the mango tree. There are no tigers in sight!

And there are lots of ripe mangoes on the ground below the tree. And--Oh, happy day!--there is one juicy mango still on the tree, within reach right from their limb!

"MAYBE WE COULD JUST GET THAT LITTLE ONE. OK? RIGHT?"

And that mango is s-o-o-o delicious. But there are still all those ripe and sweet mangoes all around the tree. And there are no tigers to be seen!

"MAYBE. . .?"

The mangoes are so delicious and all is well as the little monkeys chow down. . . until--

"TIGERS!"

"RUN! JUMP! CLIMB!"

And no sooner do the little monkeys return to their limb, trying to look innocent, than Mom returns, looking frightened, thankful to see her three little ones are safe where she left them. She reports that down there, there were tigers everywhere . . . . The three little monkeys hurry to agree that they are lucky to be safe up high in their tree, just as Mama ordered.

"WE CAN'T GO ANYWHERE," MOM SAYS SADLY. "NOT EVEN TO THE BANANAS. . . ."

The three little monkeys give each other sly looks....

"THERE ARE BANANAS. . .? Hmmm. . . ."

Mischievous little monkeys are tempted by both the sweet fruits and the thrill of transgressing (just a little) Mama's well-meant warnings, in author-illustrator Chris Haughton's story of sneaky monkey misdoings and near misses, Maybe... (Candlewick, 2021).

In an witty, all-too-human story of temptation by a forbidden fruit, Haughton's clever illustrations, especially the eyes of his animal characters, whimsically tell the tale of what they are really thinking, especially the sly eyes of the three would-be malefactors, while showing that, as usual, Mama is RIGHT!

Says Kirkus Reviews, "The book's suspense is built with careful pacing and the repetition of particular words. . . An impish adventure."

Share this just-published story with Eileen Christelow's beloved series, beginning with Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed (A Five Little Monkeys Story) (Read my reviews here) https://booksforkidsblog.blogspot.com/search?q=Five+little+Monkeys+by+Eileen+Christelow.)