Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial [Hardcover]

Ronald Kidd (Author)

Book Description

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. After falling for her young teacher, 15-year-old student Frances Robinson finds herself in the middle of the biggest trial of the era when her teacher is arrested by her father for teaching evolution in the classroom. A fictionalized account of the 1925 Scopes trial.

--This text refers to the Library Binding edition.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Grade 6 Up–The summer of 1925 is one that 15-year-old Frances will always remember. Her small town of Dayton, TN, suddenly grabs worldwide attention when local teacher Johnny Scopes becomes the victim of an enormous publicity stunt that her father has helped to instigate. Scopes, who is also Francess friend and secret crush, is arrested and put on trial for teaching evolution from a school-approved textbook purchased in Francess fathers drugstore. Although the contrived trial is intended only to bring national attention and tourism to the town, the events that unfold send the teens world into a spin when she defies her father and defends Scopes. The drama heightens when William Jennings Bryan, H. L. Mencken, Clarence Darrow, and an entourage of reporters and fanatics converge in sleepy Dayton, throwing it into a hotbed of politics, controversy, and peril. Weaving a somber yet witty narrative around a pivotal event, this fast-paced drama is reminiscent of Harper Lees To Kill a Mockingbird. Kidds personal relationship with account witnesses and his talent for storytelling create a unique and heartfelt story of a likable girl maturing through an unforgettable summer in American history. An excellent read and a wonderful piece of literature.–Kimberly Monaghan, formerly at Vernon Area Public Library, IL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 6-9. Kidd fictionalizes the 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial," re-creating it through the eyes of 15-year-old Frances Robinson. It is her father, the owner of the town's drugstore, who convinces John Scopes to admit that he has taught evolution in order to bring publicity to sleepy Dayton, Tennessee. Mr. Robinson succeeds beyond his wildest dreams when William Jennings Bryan comes to prosecute Scopes, Clarence Darrow arrives to defend him, and a slew of journalists, including H. L. Mencken, descend to cover the trial. In an informative afterword, Kidd describes how he used the facts of the affair and the real people involved as the basis of his telling, though Frances' interaction with the main players is the heart of the story. Her crush on her teacher, John Scopes, propels the action, but it is her realization that some of her most cherished beliefs about family, neighbors, and even religion can be challenged that heightens the conflict. Kidd's writing is sometimes purposive, but there is plenty to get readers thinking, and with the controversy over evolution back in the news, this is a timely novel. Pair it with Jen Bryant's The Trial (2004), in which Bruno Richard Hauptmann is tried for kidnapping the baby son of Charles Lindbergh. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers (January 24, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416905723
• ISBN-13: 978-1416905721
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,755,520 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Won't you take me to, Monkey Town?, May 23, 2006

By 

E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial (Hardcover)

You know what the bane of a children's librarian's life is? Well-written middle reader titles. You know what I mean. They're those charming tomes with protagonists that are young teens. These books are written with a very definite readership in mind and they are a nightmare to deal with collectionwise. If your local library has a children's section AND a teen section, where do you put a book like, "Monkey Town"? It's so incredibly well-written with interesting facts and some amazing plotting that you're inclined to put it in the children's room. Then again, the character is obviously a teen and we're dealing with some pretty heavy topics in this novel. Evolution. The existence of God. Small town life vs. big city snobbery. This is a coming of age novel in the best sense of the term, but it makes my life a misery. It would have been so much easier to catalogue had the book been badly written or boring. Then I could have just urged the Powers That Be not to purchase it at all. Instead, I'll reluctantly hand it to the Young Adult librarians in my branch and pray that tweens and early teens find it lurking there. Cause until our libraries start creating Middle Reader Librarians and rooms, books like "Monkey Town" will be straddling two entirely different readerships.

Frances luuuvs Johnny. Johnny Scopes, that is. Heard of him? Well he's the young college kid who graduated and took a post in fifteen-year-old Frances's high school. She thinks he's dreamy, but he treats her more like a kid sister than the sophisticated dame she'd like to be. Frances loves Johnny but there are other problems apart from their age difference. You see, Frances's father is Frank Earle Robinson, owner of Robinson's Drugs. One day, Mr. Robinson and some of the town leaders come up with a scheme that'll get the city of Dayton, Tennessee a little more publicity. You see, the state of Tennessee makes it illegal to teach evolution in schools. Now the ACLU wants a Tennessee teacher to be a test case that can bring this law to the courts. Mr. Robinson and his friends want that someone to be Johnny Scopes. He taught the kids evolution in the last year, didn't he? Reluctantly Johnny agrees, but only with the given understanding that he'll keep his job in the end. Still, nobody could expect the maelstrom of activity that is brought to bear on this formerly sleepy burg once the trial approaches. And for Frances, the influx of folks from out of town means that she's exposed to new thoughts and ideas. Maybe evolution and creation are not diametrically opposed. Maybe her father isn't as great a guy as she thought he was. And maybe even in a small homey town like Dayton, there's a lot of nastiness that lurks deep in the hearts of even the "nicest" of people.

"Inherit the Wind" for the kiddie set? Not exactly. The real focus of this novel is on Frances herself. Through her eyes we get to meet all the major players in the Scopes Trial. For example, she hangs out with Johnny for fun and through him meets the larger-than-life H.L. Mencken. Author Ronald Kidd really is at his best when he gives us Mencken, writ large. The man's as pompous and vile-spewing as ever, but with more ugly truths and conflicting tendernesses than you'd find in your average historical fiction for the kiddies. We also meet the great William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow, each in their own peculiar particular way. Incorporating real historical figures into a children's book can sometimes feel forced or awkward. Not here. The advantage that, "Monkey Town" has over its historical fiction fellows is the character of Frances Robinson herself. Based on a real woman of the same name, Kidd explains in his Author's Note how he came to meet Ms. Robinson and which parts of this story were true, and which his own. This lends an authenticity to the novel, to say nothing of Kidd's own skills at incorporating the believable with the possible.

Truth be told, this really is a story about Frances. It's the old story of a small-town girl curious about the greater world around her. By the end of the book you're sure that soon Frances will get out of Dayton and see the wider world. Maybe she'll go to college! It's with a bittersweet afterthought, then, that one reads the story of the read Frances Robinson. She never left Dayton but instead married the local high school football coach. After a book showing her growth and maturity, it seems more than a little sad to find that the facts of the matter don't line up with the story the author told. That's nobody's fault, of course. It just shows how inconvenient the truth can sometimes be.

What Kidd does so well with this book is allow the reader to make up their own mind on the evolution debate. He isn't preaching anymore than Frances is. We see the good and bad of both sides of the debate and are allowed to reason out how we feel as a result. Maybe that's the real beauty of, "Monkey Town". While Frances is dealing with a too too complicated world, we also are seeing the dimensions and two-sides of every character. And Kidd cleverly makes us challenge our own assumptions, even going so far as to play on our worst instincts when it comes to Frances's father. For quite some time he comes off as a particularly well-aligned villain, only to be redeemed in a wholly believable way by the end.

If I had to come up with a problem I had with the book, maybe it would involve the factual aspects of the story. I would have loved a nice Bibliography at the back. Failing that, maybe a section outlining exactly what was true and what wasn't with a little more certainty. Instead we get a nice section in which Kidd thanks a whole host of people but doesn't refer us elsewhere. Kids wanting to learn more about the Scopes Trial will have to seek out books and websites on their own, I fear. A bit of a pity.

Small potatoes, though. After all, there are plenty of well-cited works of historical fiction out there that haven't half the guts and gall of this little number. A remarkable story, a great book, and definitely a piece of worthwhile reading. Kidd really does harness the innate drama of the real trial for all he's worth. Now to figure out where to put it in my library.... hm....

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bringing the Scopes Trial to Life, June 11, 2006

By 

J. M. Hochstetler "J. M. Hochstetler" (Charlotte, TN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial (Hardcover)

When fifteen-year-old Frances Robinson becomes caught up in the famous Scopes trial, nothing--neither her town nor her parents nor her own life--will ever be the same. In his latest novel, Monkey Town, Ron Kidd touches on universal themes to recreate a world that not only is past for us today, but also is slipping like sand through the fingers of his main character. Anyone who has lived through the teenage years or is currently fighting through that confusing life stage will recognize the doubts, the disillusionments, and also the discoveries about herself and those around her that Frances encounters during one long, hot summer. In learning that people--even those closest to her--are not always what they seem, she matures from a child to a young woman ready to seek her own destiny in the world. The real strength of this novel is Kidd's portrayal of the complex characters woven into the story and the nostalgic portrayal of small town life in 1920s Tennessee. Both children and adults will thoroughly enjoy this book.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars solid, likable historical coming of age, April 16, 2006

By 

B. Capossere (Rochester, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial (Hardcover)

Why do reviewers persist in making these ridiculous comparisons between books that can only serve to disappoint a reader? Ignore the reviews and the book jacket blurbs--there is simply no comparison between Monkey Town and To Kill a Mockingbird, except that both have a young girl narrator who witnesses a trial and both are written using words. That isn't to say Monkey Town is bad, but it has nowhere near the richness of language, character, or plot that Mockingbird does. Neither do 99 percent of other novels which is what, after all, makes Mockingbird a classic.
So if it's no Mockingbird, what is it? A solidly likable coming-of-age novel with a nicely historical setting. Almost all you need to know is in the title: it's summer, the Scopes trial is about to begin, and the town that hosts it--Dayton Tn--is not going to come off so well.
The narrator is 15-year-old Frances, whose father managed to convince a local teacher (Johnny Scopes) to be the focus of the test case pro-evolution people were looking for. This isn't because Frances' father is a believer in evolution--just the opposite. To him it's simply a huge publicity stunt to save a town he's concerned is losing it vitality. This is the book's opening premise and from it two basic storylines emerge.
One is the trial itself, with lots of historical references and frequent appearances by acidic H.L. Mencken (who takes an endearing liking to Frances) and less-frequent appearances by other historic personages, such as Clarence Darrow. We also get some well-handled glimpses of the trial itself thanks to Frances' ability to get a good seat. There isn't much new here with regard to the trial itself, with the exception of Mencken's presence--one which adds a wonderfully biting spark to the book. What is nicely done however is the way the author connects the trial to actual living individuals, showing its impact on real lives. Usually events relegated to the abstraction of "history" quickly lose their human attachment and Kidd does a nice job reattaching this set piece.
The other story, and the main one, is Frances' coming of age. And there are a myriad of ways in which this happens. Before the summer of the trial, she moved in an innocent world filled with flawless people: Johnny Scopes, on whom she has a typically powerful crush; her infallible father who does only good; her strong mother; her ever-faithful best friend; a warm and beneficent town; God. By the end of the book, all of these people have had the patina of perfection rubbed off of them in some fashion or another. Though Frances has her resolution, mostly positive, with all these losses, Kidd shows that things will never be the same again--Frances is no longer a little girl in a bubble.
The course of the trial, of course, is well-known, though perhaps not to the target audience (depending on what they've gotten in school) but still holds some tension due to its impact on the characters. The coming-of-age story is relatively predictable--one knows Frances will have her heart broken, will see a darker side of her father, etc.--and relatively benign, but is enjoyable if not particularly compelling or insightful. The side characters, with the exception of Mencken are not truly three-dimensional, but they serve their purpose. Mencken, on the other hand, is a true delight and the book picks up greatly whenever he and Frances are together. There is one forced scene where Frances must confront the town's darker elements and here unfortunately is also the strongest connection to Mockingbird, reading as a poor person's version of the scene with Atticus guarding Tom on the porch of the jail. But this is the only truly weak scene in the book.
In the end, Monkeytown stands out more for the character of Mencken than anything else, but if it isn't an outstanding book, it's certainly a pleasing one. Somewhat recommended.