Small Readers: Mr. Monkey bakes a cake by Jeff Mack

Mr. Monkey, who looks like a human with a tail, furry ears, and large muzzle, is baking a cake. He dumps in bananas, sugar, and other ingredients, making a huge mess. However, he ends up with a great cake! Which he's too full to eat, having stuffed himself with bananas. Fortunately, there's a cake contest in town and he sets off to complete. Along the way, he runs into a series of catastrophes; he jaywalks and is almost run over by a tattooed cyclist, fends off birds, is chased by dogs, nearly gets attacked by a gorilla... finally, he arrives at the competition.... but he's too late! The competition is over. Could things get any worse? Well, that gorilla is still on the loose...

Cartoon illustrations show the series of mishaps, slapstick, and luck that Mr. Monkey encounters. Throughout the story, there's a small black girl in the background, carefully carrying her own pink-frosted cake and she gets incorporated into the happy ending. This comes in at a good beginning reader level - it's a 220 lexile level and would come out to a red sticker, or beginning reader (one step above emergent readers) in my library.

I'm... torn about this one. I really don't know what to decide in conclusion. On the one hand, I'm sure kids will like this. The cartoon illustrations and panels, slapstick humor, and colorful art are similar to other popular series like Jump-into-chapters, Elephant and Piggie, and Ethan Long's titles. There's a nice diversity in the background characters - the little black girl and tattooed bike rider with a basket full of flowers. But... for anyone who's been following children's literature discussions online there's been a lot of controversy (not just recently, it's always been around, it's just recently cropped up again) about depicting humans as monkeys, children as monkeys, etc. because of the racist overtones. I'm not going to comment one way or another on that - I don't feel qualified to judge and I haven't purchased most of the books discussed for other reasons - but this one... why is Mr. Monkey a monkey? He doesn't talk, and yet he's very anthropomorphic - and there's a very stereotypical gorilla in a cage. It just feels... off. Maybe I'm overly sensitive to it because of the ongoing discussion, but maybe this is a good thing to feel sensitive about?

Verdict: I don't know. Kids would like it and read it, but the depiction of a half-man/half-monkey feels off to me. I honestly doubt the author had anything but funny cartoons in his mind when he wrote/drew this - his work is very silly, similar to Ethan Long. It's got many excellent reviews, including some starred reviews. So... I really don't know. Am I overthinking this? Should I get it since I know the kids will like it? Discuss it in a book club? What do you think?

ISBN: 9781534404311; Published July 2018 by Simon & Schuster; Borrowed from another library in my consortium