In the first book in the ‘Harry the Karate Monkey’ series mad scientists, secret agents and the baddest of baddies all come together with a stuffed toy monkey and a little girl called Lucy. Together, they embark on the most amazing adventure of their lives…so far.
Genre: Children’s book, Picture Book
Age appropriate: 4-9 year’s old
Number of Pages: 40 pages
Date of Publication: 21/09/2020
Author/Illustrator/Publisher:
The author of this book is Stuart Simmonds. The Illustrator is Bill Greenhead who has been working for the last 30 years illustrating children books all around the world.
Published by StuHead Publishing Ltd
Rating: 4.5/5
Review:
‘Harry the Karate Monkey’ is the first book in a new seven-book series aimed for children and their parents.
This is the story of a girl called Lucy who received as a present a soft toy called Harry and somehow it came to life with cool karate moves and lots of energy. There were some baddies who were after the monkey and Lucy, but these baddies didn’t have much luck.
The illustrations are in a comic book panelled style with eye catching and colourful art. There are a variety of characters like the agent, baddies, children, parents and teachers with a good display of racial diversity and of course a monkey with cool karate moves. The story is packed with adventure with lots of funny parts and silly jokes that children will enjoy. There are illustrations on every single page and they manage to tell the story without needing the whole text to be read which is great as children can use their imagination to understand what is happening. The language in the story is nice and simple with many of the common ‘tricky words’ schools focus on which children who are just learning to read can easily recognise while following the action. The end of the story leaves us wanting to know what is going to happen so we will be waiting for the next book.
This is great choice for a bed time story and will keep parents entertain as well. The comic book style of using multiple panels to show action and flow of conversations makes it easy to follow regardless of your grasp of reading. The quality of the book and pages is really good so I am really happy with it.
Availability: You can find the book at Waterstones, Amazon and all good bookshops.
Thank you so much Sophie Inglis and Stuart Simmonds for our copy.
Shelf Life 
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