Melissa Stewart
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Fourteen Monkeys

A Rain Forest Rhyme

Fourteen Monkeys a Rain Forest Rhyme

by Melis­sa Stewart

illus by Steve Jenk­ins

Simon & Schus­ter, 2021

for ages 5 to 9

ISBN 978–1‑53446–039‑3

Pur­chase this book at your local inde­pen­dent book­seller or Amazon.com.

Wel­come to Manú Nation­al Park in Peru, where an aston­ish­ing four­teen dif­fer­ent species of mon­keys live togeth­er. That’s more than in any oth­er rain for­est on Earth! How can so many species sur­vive togeth­er in place? Find out in this play­ful, rhyming pic­ture book that explores each monkey’s habits, diet, and home ter­ri­to­ry, illus­trat­ing how this del­i­cate ecosys­tem and its crea­tures live in har­mo­ny. From howler mon­keys to spi­der mon­keys to night mon­keys, young read­ers will love get­ting to know these incred­i­ble pri­mates and dis­cov­er­ing the amaz­ing ways they share their forest.

Honors and Awards

  • Bank Street Col­lege Best Children’s Book of the Year
  • Cal­i­for­nia Eure­ka! Book Award, Sil­ver Honor
  • Evanston Pub­lic Library Blue­ber­ry Award Hon­or Title
  • Fuse #8 Pro­duc­tions Best Rhyming Pic­ture Books
  • Fuse #8 Pro­duc­tions Best Sci­ence & Nature Books
  • Fuse #8 Pro­duc­tions Best Non­fic­tion Pic­ture Books
  • Junior Library Guild selection
  • Pol­i­tics and Prose Book­store Chil­dren and Teen Favorites
  • Publisher’s Week­ly Rec­om­mend­ed Envi­ron­men­tal Kids’ Books for 2021
  • Read­ing Rock­ets Fea­tured Title
  • Soci­ety of Illus­tra­tors Orig­i­nal Art Show, featured
  • Wash­ing­ton Town­er Book Award Finalist

Reviews

  “Stew­art and Jenk­ins have pro­duced anoth­er stel­lar pic­ture book. … Four­teen Mon­keys, enter­tain­ing, infor­ma­tive, and stim­u­lat­ing, exem­pli­fies the char­ac­ter­is­tics of great nonfiction—it’s a won­der­ful way to spark curios­i­ty and start young read­ers on a life-long road of dis­cov­ery.” (Shelf Aware­ness, starred review)

“Cap­ti­vat­ing, infor­ma­tive, and use­ful … Each species, apt­ly shown in an arbo­re­al set­ting, is intro­duced and iden­ti­fied via a charm­ing bold­faced cou­plet; text set in a small­er font pro­vides more-sub­stan­tive infor­ma­tion. … Jenk­ins’ sig­na­ture splen­did illus­tra­tions, cut- and torn-paper col­lages, real­is­ti­cal­ly depict the mon­keys as col­or­ful, live­ly, wide-eyed, win­some, and endear­ing; fur appears pal­pa­bly plush.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“While mon­keys are always appeal­ing to young chil­dren, this book digs deep­er into the lives of these 14 mon­keys using Stew­art’s beau­ti­ful, descrip­tive, and age-appro­pri­ate vocab­u­lary, and Jenk­in­s’s famil­iar cut-paper col­lage illus­tra­tions to match. … A ter­rif­ic addi­tion­al or first pur­chase.” (School Library Jour­nal)

“… each [mon­key] gets its own place to shine in a dou­ble-page spread that fea­tures a rhymed cou­plet, a hand­ful of explana­to­ry prose lines, an info­graph­ic that denotes the height at which the mon­key lives with­in the for­est, and an ener­getic col­lage by the ever-engag­ing Jenk­ins. … Although a sim­ple read-aloud pro­vides plen­ty of delight, class­es can eas­i­ly extract data that demon­strates Stew­art’s open­ing obser­va­tion on lim­it­ed com­pe­ti­tion, and enter­pris­ing teach­ers might orches­trate a class per­for­mance.” (Bul­letin of the Cen­ter for Chil­dren’s Books)

“A great choice for young ani­mal- and sci­ence-lovers search­ing for their next non­fic­tion read.” (Book­list)

Behind the Book

“This book was inspired by a sin­gle para­graph in The Life of Mam­mals by David Atten­bor­ough. It explained how a half dozen species of guenon mon­keys can all live togeth­er in the forests of Africa because they have dif­fer­ent lifestyles and habits. As I was read­ing this pas­sage, I imme­di­ate­ly thought of the fun poem “10 Lit­tle Mon­keys” and won­dered if I could cre­ate a non­fic­tion ver­sion with facts about this group of monkeys.

“That idea did­n’t work out, but I was so fas­ci­nat­ed by mon­keys that I kept doing research and talk­ing about them every chance I got. Even­tu­al­ly, my friend and children’s book illus­tra­tor Katy Tanis, who is on a quest to see every mon­key species in the world in its nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment, sug­gest­ed that I read High Moon over the Ama­zon: My Quest to Under­stand the Mon­keys of the Night by Patri­cia Wright. That book led me to the very spe­cial com­mu­ni­ty of mon­keys that inhab­it Manú Nation­al Park in Peru. The more I learned about them, the more con­vinced I became that they were the per­fect fit for the book I want­ed to write.

“While the text doesn’t fol­low the same meter as ‘10 Lit­tle Mon­keys,’ you can see the influ­ence if you look close­ly. Because I knew curi­ous kids would want to know more about the mon­keys than I could pos­si­bly incor­po­rate into the poet­ic main text, I added sec­ondary text full of addi­tion­al details as well as rich back­mat­ter burst­ing with even more information.

“Manú Nation­al Park isn’t open to vis­i­tors, but as I was research­ing the book, I was able to inter­view a sci­en­tist who spent time there. I also drew upon my expe­ri­ence observ­ing wildlife in the rain forests of Cos­ta Rica, where I was lucky enough to spend time watch­ing three of the species includ­ed in Four­teen Mon­keys.”

Fourteen Monkeys a Rain Forest Rhyme

by Melis­sa Stewart

illus by Steve Jenk­ins

Simon & Schus­ter, 2021

for ages 5 to 9

ISBN 978–1‑53446–039‑3

Pur­chase this book at your local inde­pen­dent book­seller or Amazon.com.

Book Extensions

TEACHERS’ GUIDE
READ ALOUD GUIDE

VIDEO: USING VIVID VERBS

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