The baby monkey assumed that the butterfly would know babies look like their mothers. With older children, you could look at how easy it is to think that everyone thinks the same as us – for example, ‘because I like apples, you must like apples’.

In this book, a baby monkey is looking for his mother. A friendly butterfly takes charge and tries to solve the puzzle of where she might be. Funnily enough, I find it harder to write not in verse, though I feel I am now getting the hang of it! My novel THE GIANTS AND THE JONESES is going to be made into a film by the same team who made the Harry Potter movies, and I have written three books of stories about the anarchic PRINCESS MIRROR-BELLE who appears from the mirror and disrupts the life of an otherwise ordinary eight-year-old. I have just finished writing a novel for teenagers. The story begins with a little monkey, alone and lost in the jungle. This little monkey has lost his mum. Eventually the little monkey becomes exasperated with Butterfly. Why does she keep getting the wrong animals? Then, the penny drops. The little monkey never gives Butterfly the key information - the little monkey’s mum looks like he does! This seems obvious to the little monkey but it isn’t to Butterfly because none of her babies looks like she does: her babies are caterpillars! While toddlers should share a book with an adult one to one, three- and four-year-olds may enjoy looking at this book in pairs. The illustrations in this book are quite striking and work well alongside the rhyming text.

Discover more about the animals in the story. With older children, search the internet for information by keying in such questions as ‘where do bats live?’.

Investigate environmental issues linked to jungles and rainforests. How can people help to protect them? The butterfly’s babies don’t look like him. Can you explain why this is? What does metamorphosis mean? Look at the plants and flowers in the illustrations. Can you identify similar plants using reference books?

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I really enjoy writing verse, even though it can be fiendishly difficult. I used to memorise poems as a child and it means a lot to me when parents tell me their child can recite one of my books.

Choose one of the animals on the word mat (see Resources below). Then, make up some clues for a friend to help them identify the animal that you are thinking of.Monkey Puzzle or Where’s My Mom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler is full of delights for young children. You will find Julia Donaldson’s brilliant rhymes and Axel Scheffler’s wonderful illustrations along with repetition, clues, jungle animals and a great big hug. We have read it over and over again and never tire of it. If you don’t own a copy it is a great addition to your bookshelves at this time of year as Mother’s Day approaches and it is also a fantastic story to read in the Spring as an introduction to the lifecycle of a butterfly. You could also read the story before a trip or a holiday to discuss with a young child what they should do if they ever do become lost (not a comfortable idea to entertain but it is certainly an important subject to discuss if you feel your little one is old enough). I have read Monkey Puzzle to groups ofchildren many times.It’s a great book to introduce different animals to young children and older children laugh at ‘the twist’ when the butterfly introduces her babies and realises that she needs to look for another monkey. It’s also a story that non native speakers can easily understand, it can help them to learn animal names as well ashow to describe an animal. A fun activity for older children is to choosean animal that hasan attribute that is similar to a monkey, describe the animaland have a friend guess which animal has been chosen. I have also had small groups of children collaborate to writea new version of the story usingdifferent animals. Unfortunately, the baby monkey doesn’t give a full description of his mother and so butterfly takes the baby monkey to the wrong animal over and over again. When the baby monkey finally explains that he looks like his mother, the puzzle is nearly solved. Monkey puzzle is the tale of a young monkey who searches for his mum with the help of a butterfly. Confusion unfolds as the butterfly uses only the most immediate piece of information when looking for the monkey's mum, for example 'She's big!' declares the monkey 'bigger than me' and using this information the butterfly takes the monkey to an elephant.

Look at the different types of punctuation shown in the story. Could you use some of these in your own writing? Before Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country; the best one was in Italian about pasta.

Axel says:

Once more this misleads butterfly as she produces a snake, so Little Monkey has to tell him that his mum has more legs than that. Once more this is confusing to butterfly who produces a spider. 'No, no, no! ... 'she'd rather eat fruit than swallow a fly, And she lives in the treetops way up high' is Little Monkey's next clue. I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married. Fortunately the little monkey isn’t alone for long. A well-meaning and friendly Butterfly appears and comforts him, then they set out to find the little monkey’s mum, together. Poor Butterfly keeps finding animals that fit the little monkey’s description but they aren’t quite right. The story was great fun to read, with lots of opportunity for children to interact with the story, such as declaring what each animal is. As always with this collection of titles from Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler which includes the critically acclaimed 'The Gruffalo', the illustration is vibrant and brings to life the animal characters. The characters are all which the children can relate to; the monkey in search of its mother could be the children themselves, and the helpful adult butterfly can be likened to police, teachers or other adults who would help the child.