The Monkey King - Penguin Active Reading - Level 4
Monkey is an excitable, selfish creature with magic skills. As a punishment he is sent, by the gods, on a long, hard journey to the west, to protect a young Buddhist priest. The travellers have many advetures on the way. Can they return unharmed?
Here we have 22 comic and dramatic short stories. Two are French, a few more American, and the majority are by British Victorian and Edwardian writers. The overall atmosphere of the volume is gothic. (Only F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Pat Hobby and Orson Welles" seems out of place.) The stories vary in familiarity, from W.W. Jacobs's relatively obscure "For Better or Worse" to the same author's overexposed "Monkey's Paw." In between are short works by Kipling, Mansfield, Poe, Hawthorne, Maupassant, and other masters.
Gabbie is a monkey baby. She is growing up in a zoo. She drinks her mother’s milk and eats the vegetables, fruit, and nuts that the zookeeper feeds her. With her strong fingers and toes, Gabbie climbs onto her mother’s back, into trees, and onto toys.
Chico Bon Bon has a problem . . . a noisy problem. He wants to fix it. BUT HE CAN'T FIND IT! What's a monkey to do? Use his tools, of course. With his tool belt, Chico can do anything!
