Summer of the Monkeys

• Genre: Fiction; middle grade historical coming-of-age
• Originally Published: 1976
• Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 810L; grades 3-7
• Structure/Length: 19 chapters; approx. 288 pages
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: In the late 1800s, 14-year-old Jay Berry Lee is surprised to find a tree full of monkeys—escaped from a traveling circus—near his home in the Ozark Mountains. Jay Berry is determined to capture them and claim the reward money, but the monkeys and their chimpanzee leader prove to be more resourceful than he expected.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Dated language (“crippled,” “Indian”)

Wilson Rawls, Author

• Bio: 1913-1984; born in Oklahoma and grew up on a farm in the Ozark Mountains; had little formal schooling but learned to read under his mother’s tutelage; worked as a carpenter during the Great Depression; his first book, Where the Red Fern Grows, appeared in serial form in the Saturday Evening Post before it was published as a book; both of his novels feature roundly developed animal characters
• Other Works: Where the Red Fern Grows (1961)
• Awards: William Allen White Children’s Book Award (1979); California Young Reader Medal (1981)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• Perseverance in the Face of Frustration and Failure
• Befriending One’s Foes
• The Angst of Coming of Age

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will: