Mack kicks off an easy-reader series with a sweet and delicious romp. Mr. Monkey rtrayed in the simply drawn, brightly colored cartoon illustrations as a furry human with a monkey's head and tail kes a banana cake, but chows down on so many bananas in the process that he can't eat it. And so (with his noisy stomach's advice) he decides to enter it in a cake contest instead. Because of obstacles along the way, by the time Mr. Monkey arrives, the contest is over. Will there be no blue ribbon for Mr. Monkey? Never say never: a huge, angry gorilla smashes all the other cakes in a frosting-spattered hullabaloo, but then peaceably peels a ribbon off his butt and exchanges it for Mr. Monkey's last banana. Showing true nobility of spirit, Mr. Monkey proceeds to pass the ribbon on to a small, brown-skinned child who has likewise arrived late . . . and, with his next step, meets up with a fateful banana peel. Just desserts for Mr. Monkey, whose adventures continue in the copublished Mr. Monkey Visits a School.

In both comedic stories, Mr. Monkey gets into lots of trouble but ultimately prevails in his goals. The spare early-reader texts appear partially in speech bubbles. Mack's cartoony digital illustrations, a mix of vignettes and full spreads, help tell the stories and add elements of slapstick; Mr. Monkey and his antics take center stage, but there's notable effort at inclusion and multiculturalism in the human casts.