Monkey Island [Hardcover]

P Fox (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1991 | Age Level: 10 and up

Nothing in his white middle-class childhood has prepared Clay for the small park in New York City that during one terrible winter becomes "home," or for old Calvin and young Buddy, who become the family he takes to heart when his own has disappeared. Stark, compassionate, and nowadays, altogether likely.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Fox ( The Village by the Sea ) has written a quietly terrifying, wholly compelling novel about the urban homeless, filtered through the experience of an 11-year-old boy. Clay's middle-class existence begins to shred when his art-director father loses his job and, eventually, his connection to his wife and child. He leaves without a word one day, and Clay and his pregnant mother end up in a welfare hotel, a place "where people in trouble waited for something better--or worse--to happen to them." And happen it does, for Clay's mother soon disappears as well, and Clay takes to the streets, to be befriended by two homeless men and reunited with his mother only after great tribulation. Once again Fox displays her remarkable ability to render life as seen by a sensitive child who has bumped up against harsh circumstances. Her understanding of Clay is keenly empathic and intuitive, and it seems near-total: she is as finely attuned to the small, surprising eddies of his thoughts as to their larger and more obvious stream. It is precisely this attention to the quiet, easily lost insight that gives her account its veracity and force. For example, one night Clay and a friend break into a church basement, and Clay spies a bulletin board. He is "faintly surprised. I can read, he thought"--a small jolt that shows us just how far from the world of school and homework he has traveled. Fox neither preaches about nor attempts to soften the stark realities of the life that is, temporarily, thrust upon Clay. Clear-eyed and unblinking as ever, she shows us the grit, misery and despair of the homeless, along with occasional qualified, but nonetheless powerful redemptive moments--the sharing of an apple or kind word by those with little to spare; for Clay, the bright smile of his newborn sister. Ages 10-up.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-7-- Eleven-year-old Clay Garrity's family had been what most people would consider an average family--until the magazine his father worked for went out of business and he couldn't find another job over the next year. Clay then experienced the gradual decline from that normal existence to one of abandonment by his father, the move to a welfare hotel and, at the beginning of the story, the disappearance of his mother who, with the added burden of a difficult pregnancy, is unable to cope with the daily struggle for survival. Clay eventually comes to a small park scornfully called "Monkey Island" for the homeless who live there. Here he is taken in by two men who share the wooden crate that offers them some shelter from the cold November winds. These three become a sort of family, holding on to some sense of humanity in a brutal and brutalizing world. For all of its harshness, Monkey Island is also a romanticized view of the world. Although Clay is not spared the hunger, fear, illness, and squalor of the streets, there is still a distancing from the more immediate types of violence that exist there. He is always on the edge of such danger, but no incidents actually touch him. In the end, it is pneumonia that brings him back into the social services system. After ten days in the hospital, the boy is placed in a foster home and shortly thereafter is reunited with his mother and baby sister in a conclusion that readers desire but that may strain credibility. This is a carefully crafted, thoughtful book, and one in which the flow of language both sustains a mood of apprehension and encourages readers to consider carefully the plight of the homeless, recognizing unique human beings among the nameless, faceless masses most of us have learned not to see. --Kay E. Vandergrift, School of Communication, Information and Library Studies, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Scholastic (September 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0531059626
• ISBN-13: 978-0531059623
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,728,318 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It was an okay book.I don't always like non fictionn., February 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Monkey Island (Paperback)

I don't really like non fiction books, but this one was okay. I liked how at the end it ended up happy and he even saw Buddy again. I didn't like how in the first chapter it was confusing because it kept flashing back from the past to the present. I would recomend it to a friend who would want to know about homelessness and likes books where the story could really happen. That is my review of Monkey Island C.B.Fox

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful story, rich in imagry, December 4, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Monkey Island (Paperback)

I am so thankful that I found this book. I read it in one sitting and am looking forward to sharing it with my 6th-graders. Many of my students are only a few steps away from Clay's street hut. It is for them that I want to shed a light of hope. I think this book can help me do that for them. It is also a great book to read to children who have what they need to stay warm and well-fed. It will afford them the opportunity to get to know someone their age that must go without and take chances that have very uncertain outcomes.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Review of Monkey Island, October 7, 2002

By 

Michele Slavinski (Kutztown, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Monkey Island (Paperback)

Paula Fox does an amazing job depicting homelessness in her book Monkey Island. Clay Garrity, an eleven year old boy, is left to fend for himself after his pregnant mother disappears. He meets two homeless men, Buddy and Calvin, who become his new family on the street. They care for him as best they can but the cold and lack of food are too much for Clay and he has to be taken to a hosiptal. Now he has to depend on Social Services to find out what happened to his mother and his new sibling.

I thought that Fox's description of Clay's life on the street was exceptional. Her language really flowed nicely and I felt like I was experiencing what Clay was. Fox also had the major dramatic question, "What happened to Clay's mother?". This question was the driving force while I read this book. I was so intrigued that I finished the book in one sitting.

The only problem I had with this book was the ending. I didn't think it was realistic. Fox had all of these well portrayed, complex issues throughout the book and the ending just seemed very simplistic compared to everything else.

However, overall I really enjoyed this book. I thought that it was well written, that language flowed together, and that it provided a realistic look at what life would be like on the streets.

I think this book would be a great tool to help teachers to portray homelessness and/or poverty to their students. This book would really force children to look at and understand the social problems that our society has and help them to relate to, and sympathize with, these problems.