Crick Crack, Monkey (Paperback)

by Merle Hodge (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Young Tee and her younger brother Toddan are taken home by Tantie, their father's sister, when their mother dies in childbirth. Shortly thereafter, their father goes to England and Tee concludes he left, "to see whether he could find Mammy and the baby." The life Tantie offers Tee and Toddan is full of fiercely raucous love; when Tantie is crossed, "the neighbors for six houses on every side of us were generally aware of this fact." Throughout Tee's early years, Mammy's sister Beatrice - a woman with a voice that sounds "like high-heels and stockings" - attempts to get custody of Tee and Toddan. Tee's love and loyalty to Tantie are strained as she grows up and begins to want the pretty clothes and tidy life Beatrice offers. Tantie's bellowing resistance to Tee's desire to live with Beatrice finally dissolves when Tee wins a scholarship and must move in with Auntie Beatrice's family in order to continue her education. To her dismay, everything about living with Auntie Beatrice makes Tee feel bad and she begins to blame Tantie: "If Auntie Beatrice had whisked us away from the very beginning and brought us here, then I would have been nice... and the front door would not have been forbidding nor the armchairs in the living room disapproving." In rollicking and poignant prose, Crick Crack, Monkey tells the story of a young girl caught between two worlds, neither of which feels like hers. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Jesse Larsen --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
A revealing novel of childhood about Tee who is being made socially acceptable by her aunt so that she can cope with the caste system of Trinidad.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Heinemann (February 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0435989510
• ISBN-13: 978-0435989514
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #503,154 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you enjoyed Miguel Street, You'd love this book., June 4, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Crick Crack, Monkey (Caribbean Writers Series) (Paperback)

This is one of the rolicking, humorous West Indian novels in the vein of V.S. Naipaul's Miguel Street, Alvin Bennet's God, the Stonebreaker, Austin Clarke's Amongst the Thistles and Torns, and A House for Mr. Bishwas. It captures the bitter-sweet experiences of a little girl growing up in Trnidad and Tobago. An excellent Caribbean novel.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poignant critique of the effects of colonialism, July 22, 2002

By	JoAnn Whetsell (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

More than humor, I remember this book for its poignancy, the effects on a young girl of her own culture (black, Caribbean) being denigrated and other cultures and anything associated with whiteness and England being praised. So touching was the scene where Tee is playing with dolls; so telling is her idealization of the dolls' world and the juxtaposition with her own.

Everyone wants the best for their children; this book examines how people decide what is best and how these preconceptions affect the very children they love and want to protect.

4.0 out of 5 stars A great text to teach in a postcolonial literature course, October 11, 2008

By	Karen Remedios - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This short but intense novel lends itself to a fruitful discussion of postcolonial issues such as appropriation and abrogation, assimilation and acculturation, hybridity, mimicry, and Eurocentrism. I taught it with considerable success in an upper-division class. The students found the ending disappointing, though.

The cultural and linguistic complexity of Trinidadian society and the country's struggle to carve out an identity for itself are effectively captured in the confusion of the orphaned protagonist, Tee, who is torn between the warm but no-nonsense environment at her Tantie's and the 'properness' of life with Beatrice, her aunt who lives in the city.