I’m not overly fond of monkeys. Something about them cause a little freak out in me. Maybe it is because of the way they seem almost human like, or maybe it is because my parents subjected me to many, many Planet of the Ape movies when I was a mere child. Who can tell. Whatever the reason, I don’t love monkeys.
That being said, I have called my children by ‘monkey names’ many, many times. Cute little monkey buns, monkey face, etc. It sounds cute, but in reality, monkeys are far from cute in my opinion.
In spite of my feelings about monkeys, I bought my son a monkey book at my favorite little book store the other day. The Book Rack is an awesome store. For one, it is close to my house and full of new and used books I haven’t even read yet, and two it is run by a cute set of twin guys that know everything. They are my kind of people! They know books, movies, music, and love to talk about them too. They are also amateur film makers and expert lego builders. I call them the Renaissance men of Mesa. I think of any reason I can to go in and browse and visit with them.
The book I bought is called Monkey Tales. I thought it was a book of cute little stories about monkeys. When I started to read the book to Ben I realized, quickly, that it was actually a collection of fables, folktales, and legends all about monkeys throughout the world. Some people might have been disappointed by this but for us it was a happy accident. Ben actually prefers stories with facts in them. He is like a sponge that soaks up all the information around him and then shares it with the rest of the family at just the right moments. He amazes me with his ability to retain information. I, on the other hand, cannot remember how old I am.
Last night we read a story from Amazonia about a group of monkeys that hated the rain. Every time it rained they would hide and promise to build shelter the very next day. When the next day dawned all bright and sunny, they had no interest or desire to build houses. I thought it was a good story about procrastination and spent a few minutes talking about it to the boys.
“Yeah, yeah,….that’s great. Time for scary stories with Ben now.” Ben stated as soon as I stopped to take a breath. He then spent the next ten minutes or so telling me a story that gave me nightmares last night. Every story starts out with,”It was a dark and stormy night….” and includes zombies and people getting mangled in some way. This story had traces of horror films I have only seen trailers to through the cracks between my fingers as I tried to hide my eyes. He has never seen these movies so I wonder where he gets his information from. He was able to take the yuck from the unseen movies and mix them up with fairy tales and make them into something pretty frightening. He loves it when I tell him, “too scary!” and I squeal in fright. Maybe I am encouraging him too much?
Sometimes I think I should just write down the stories he tells and put them into a book. Of course, I would have to put a warning label inside the from cover, “Not for the faint of heart, or grandma…” cause I said so.
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