It's Them Monkey Pirates Again! by Mark Skelton and Ben Redlich
| It's Them Monkey Pirates Again! by Mark Skelton and Ben Redlich | |
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| Category: Confident Readers | |
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Reviewer: John Lloyd
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| Summary: A delirious and glorious second outing for the naughty nautical primates. The two titles together make for a charming duo of larkiness. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 160 | Date: July 2009 |
| Publisher: Egmont | |
| ISBN: 978-1405243940 | |
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This is another of those books that handily do what they say on the tin - clearly the time-travelling, wardrobe-using, banana-gobbling monkey pirates are back, and the cute charmer Emily Jane has a second opportunity to try and find out what happened to her Uncle. Along the way there will be monkey swearing, idiocy galore, and a picture of my favourite monkey pirate, Dave, farting. Glorious.
This is not just a wacky absurdist book for young readers, however - this should be bought and proudly displayed by fans of surrealist comedy of all ages. I bear as prime witness the camp robot Julian - even before he started on the scatter cushions I was expecting his mate Sandy to come round the corner.
For the younger audience though, there are great larks to be had, with an invisible and naughty book fairy, lots of banana-based larks, lots of very mild potty humour, and the request for us to cry out Bernard bumboil! three times in succession. Funny name for a female character, I know.
Everything is pretty much spot on, from the tiny details of the bananas serving as page numbers (they're peeled on chapter-ending pages), to the fluid, easy-to-read flow of digressing, original, and sparky-beyond-belief writing. Emily Jane has a fantastically active imagination - and so it seems did Mark Skelton.
I am very happy to say this is as good as the first book, but still sad that Skelton died before either were on the shelves. It's with hope I read the lines that there is more to come, but as far as I know only Andy Stanton is around with such a light and hilariously absurd touch for such an audience. Fitting into the shoes for this series would still be a challenge, I feel.
What we are left with however is a sequel that is as brisk, quick and full of beans (and bananas) as the first, but one that to a large extent needs you to have read that first - this is purely the second half of a greater - and great - opus. I see no problem at all in recommending the pair however.
I must thank Egmont for my review copy.
More wacky glories can be found in The Pencil of Doom! (Henry Mcthrottle) by Andy Griffiths.
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You can read more book reviews or buy It's Them Monkey Pirates Again! by Mark Skelton and Ben Redlich at Amazon.com.
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