DULCIE AND DUKE, THE MAGICAL MONKEY

In Kennedy’s series-starting picture book, an 8-year-old doesn’t want to try anything new—until she meets a talking monkey.

Dulcie and her parents have just moved from an unspecified place to Hanoi, Vietnam. The girl refuses to go on a grocery shopping trip, so Mom and Dad promise to be home in 10 minutes. Soon, hungry Dulcie decides to step outside, where she’s surprised to meet Duke, a talking monkey who invites her to lunch. Afterward, he takes her on a Vietnam tour using a magical monkey wrench that can open doors to anywhere, including the beach at Ha Long Bay, a floating market on the Mekong River, the colorful Hoi An paper-lantern festival. and Sa Pa, a mountain town where Dulcie buys her mom a souvenir. When Duke brings Dulcie home, she runs to hug her confused parents: “We’ve only been gone ten minutes,” says Mom. Hanna’s simple cartoon illustrations have muted tones; Dulcie has pale skin and wears a striped shirt with blue overalls. The text and images don’t always match perfectly. However, the story deals beautifully with the theme of culture shock and uses clever misunderstandings between Dulcie and Duke, an anecdote about dragons, and the youngster’s growing curiosity to effectively transition from one setting to the next.

Young readers will likely look forward to where Duke takes Dulcie next.