Monkey Business
Wallace Edwards
Kids Can Press, 2004
ISBN: 1-55337-462-2
*Images in article link to larger pictures.
What chaos of images does a child conjure when she first hears the expression, "a bull in a china shop" or "playing cat and mouse"? Grownups may have forgotten the wonder of hearing an idiom for the first time, but Wallace Edwards' mischievous new book Monkey Business (2004) seems to have been conceived in such a spirit. Also an 'eye spy' book, monkeys are cleverly concealed in each single-page illustration. A versatile picture book executed in the tradition of Edwards' own abecedary Alphabeasts (reviewed in this topic in 2003), Monkey Business presents creatures in quite literal explanations of idioms, resulting in most improbable--and usually hilarious--situations.
Like Alphabeasts, Monkey Business is more than the sum of its parts. Each picture is accompanied by a whimsical example of the idiom: "Eloise had a craving for snails, but she accidentally opened a can of worms." The book is a worthy introduction to English language idioms, if, to be sure, some of the expressions are fading from common usage, i.e., "lucky duck." However, didactism and even utility is of secondary importance; meanings do not appear alongside the pictures, but are relegated to the glossary in the back of the book. Readers wanting to learn the proper usage of idioms might do better to turn to matter-of-fact works, i.e., Super Silly Sayings That Are Over Your Head (2004) by Catherine S. Snodgrass. Daring readers, on the other hand, will welcome Edwards' witty reinventions of overused platitudes. Who can read "play it by ear" again without picturing Phil, the basset hound, playing a cello with his ears? And one won't soon forget Gavin the cricket, who, "snug as a bug in a rug," reads comic books and wears women's wigs.
More worldly readers will be intrigued by the book's visual references to other works, namely Norwegian artist Edvard Munch and the brilliant printer/graphic artist M.C. Escher. One of the boardroom monkeys tending to "monkey business" holds his head in his hands, in imitation of the anguished figure in Munch's infamous "Scream" (see the list at the end of this article for the screaming monkey). The Penrose triangle, an impossible contruct that figures prominently in Escher's works, is echoed by the Penrose square in many of the animal portraits in Monkey Business. Picture book connoisseurs may even notice a reference to illustrator Chris Van Allsburg. In an illustration reminiscent of Van Allsburg's "The Third-Floor Bedroom" from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick (1984), a butterfly lifts "off the wall," that is, off an intricate wallpaper pattern (compare Edwards' picture to Van Allsburg's). As another parallel, the bird wallpaper pattern in Van Allsburg's "The Third-Floor Bedroom" also evokes many of Escher's tessellations.
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