My brother bought this book for my youngest daughter for her first Christmas as monkeys are quite popular in our house. My elder daughter has her cuddly monkey with her at all times and my youngest is also beginning to become quite attached to her smaller monkey. So therefore I think my brother bought this mainly to make me smile but upon opening the book I was very pleased with his choice of present.

I had been aware of this series of Usborne books for quite a while and had even picked a few up and flicked through and been rather tempted to buy but resisted the urge due to the huge number of books my girls already have. Furthermore for a baby book I do think that they are quite expensive with the rrp being £5.99. I have however seen them on offer at a cheaper price on the supermarket shelf.

The book itself is a solid chunky board book with 10 pages, it's great that the pages are so thick and solid as it makes it much easier for those little fingers to turn the pages as they get a little older and more interested in becoming involved with story time. It's also means that the book is pretty much indestructable, it can't be pulled apart or ripped, it's simply not possible.

The whole premise of the story is a child looking for his or her monkey, each double page features a different monkey, and the illustrations are bright, colourful and cheerful. Each of the different monkey has a textured part of his body which the little one's just love to touch and they quickly learn exactly where to touch on each page. The book features a velvety tail, smooth feet, hairy eyebrows and a fuzzy tongue. Finally on the last page of the book, we find our monkey with his fluffy tummy....yay. It's a really cheery and positive book and what I really liked is that you can really interact with your child when reading this book to them.

Both my daughers enjoy this book and I often find that my 17month old has pulled it dowwn from the book shelf herself and is turning the pages and stroking the different textures. Although I was initially put off because if the price, I have been won over and would definately consider buying more books from this great series.