MY DADDY IS A SILLY MONKEY

A little girl uses metaphors to describe her fun-loving dad throughout a day spent together.

“My daddy is a great BIG bear. He gets out of bed and grizzles and grouches and scratches and yawns.” The verso shows the girl next to a yawning brown bear in a bed, while the recto presents vignettes of her with her whiskery, still-tired, yawning dad. (Both father and daughter are white.) Once established, the pattern continues: the two brush teeth (crocodile); dad juggles the getting-ready-for-school routine as an octopus; her silly monkey of a dad makes her late for school. Afterward, the two swim (dad’s a whale), play on a trampoline (kangaroo), and eat dinner (tiger). Dad is a monster chasing his daughter around the house and threatening to gobble her up if her bedtime routine doesn’t get done. And by that time, dad is too tired to play anymore, and he’s “just my lovely daddy.” Thompson’s mixed-media–with-collage illustrations bring the fun to life, the daughter’s joy and the father’s exuberance more than evident on the page. Bright colors and a scratchy, splotchy style suit the topic, and observant readers can see details in the pictures that lead the child to think her dad is each kind of animal.

Readers at home and at school will enjoy using this as a springboard for describing their own dads and the things they do together.