THE MAGICAL MONKEY KING

With easygoing informality, memoirist Jiang (Red Scarf Girl, 1997) retells several adventures of this picaresque Asian folk hero. Born in spectacular fashion atop the Mountain of Flowers and Fruits, Stone Monkey opens his eyes, laughs, then goes on to become a monkey king, learn magical abilities from a Sage, repeatedly make a nuisance of himself in Heaven, and defeat both a demon and a Heavenly army in battle. Resembling a human child in fancy dress, Monkey strolls grandly through Su-Kennedy’s sketchy but expressive pictures, sowing irritation wherever he goes. Buddha himself enters at last, to put Monkey away for a few hundred years in the (quixotic) hope that he’ll learn to mend his ways. Clever, arrogant, far longer on appetite than attention span, Monkey makes an engaging antihero whose acquaintance young readers, of any cultural background, with a taste for trickster tales will be glad to make. (Folktale. 8-10)