ALA Booklist (Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2020)

This picks up right where Frazee's The Farmer and the Clown (2014) left off, as a downcast farmer, separated from his clown friend, returns home, not noticing the little circus monkey shadowing him. When the farmer finally spots the monkey outside his window, he welcomes it inside, but the little performer's rambunctious energy soon overwhelms him. Cradling the now-crumpled clown hat e only memento of his departed friend orders the monkey out into the cold. The kindhearted farmer eventually brings his little friend back inside, warms him up, and makes him a drum. Even while they enjoy each other's company, the monkey's exuberance remains too much for the farmer, humorously expressed in Frazee's soft-but-lively pencil and gouache illustrations. When the circus train finally circles back, the farmer and monkey part as friends. The wordless story doesn't provide details on why the farmer lives alone, but the final image of him playing the banjo among his animals hints that his overall perspective may have changed for the better, thanks to the visits from the clown and the monkey.

Horn Book (Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2020)

The sequel to Frazee's The Farmer and the Clown (rev. 11/14; winner of the 2015 Boston Globe-Horn Book Picture Book Award) begins where the first book left off, with a circus monkey sneaking home behind the farmer, who is despondent that his little clown friend has just left. The monkey stays out of sight, peeking around corners and peering through the farmer's window. It watches as the farmer sits slumped across from a chair empty but for the clown's pointed red hat. When the farmer notices the monkey, and invites it in, the vivacious creature tears around the farmhouse, carelessly crushing the treasured hat. The farmer, horrified, banishes the little monkey outside for the night. And now the mood, and the viewer's loyalties, shift. We are sad for the farmer, whose memento has been mangled, but now equally sad for the irrepressible monkey, who becomes buried in an overnight snowstorm. With impeccable pacing, and completely wordlessly, Frazee conducts her drama. It takes several pages, and many small moments,for the farmer and the monkey to appreciate each other, but at book's end when, inevitably, the monkey rejoins the circus train, the creature carries with it a drum, handmade by the farmer, and leaves behind a circus ticket. Frazee conveys the complexities of relationships through use of posture and facial expression. The layers of pencil and gouache have a depth and texture that makes the empty space around the lonely farmer's cabin feel full of possibility. Happily, the farmer, with the monkey's help, has found some (quieter) company on his farm, and the final page shows him comfortably leaning against his cow, playing banjo to a cozy group of hens, circus ticket tucked carefully into his hatband. Maeve Visser Knoth

Kirkus Reviews

In this wordless picture book, Frazee's lonely farmer hosts another visitor from the train on the horizon.The elderly White gent first met in The Farmer and the Clown (2014) walks home from a picnic, looking rather down, unaware he is being followed by a small monkey in a red fez and yellow frill around its neck. As he settles into his empty house, he notices the smiling monkey at the window. He lets the monkey in the front door, but after a dizzying spread depicting the monkey running amok, the farmer sends the monkey out. The frowning monkey spends the night outside as snow begins to fall. The farmer awakes to deep snow and immediately goes out to rescue the monkey. After a warm fire, soup, a story, and falling asleep on the farmer's shoulder, the monkey spends two nights at the farmer's house; on the day in between, the farmer and his animals tolerate the monkey's loud, wild ways. Finally, like the clown in the book before him, the monkey hears the circus train coming and goes on its way, smiles all around. Frazee's soft colors, careful lines, and masterful compositions work their magic once again to evoke mood and feeling in a way that children can immediately grasp. The experience hits adult readers just as powerfully, though readers who decry picture-book depictions of monkeys for reinforcing negative stereotypes of Black people will find no mitigation in the monkey's antics. (This book was reviewed digitally with 8.3-by-20.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 54.1% of actual size.)A (mostly) heartwarming follow-up visit. (Picture book. 5-9)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

A disruptive monkey takes up the action in this wordless sequel to The Farmer and the Clown. Returning to his farm disheartened, a tall red clown-s hat beneath his arm and its owner-s circus train speeding away behind him, the farmer initially fails to perceive the circus monkey apparently left behind. Trailing him in a yellow collar and red cap, the monkey bows to the farmer at the door, then launches into a whirl of activity (even crumpling the clown-s crisp chapeau) that gets it sent promptly outdoors. But a fall of overnight snow awakens the farmer-s sympathies and care-at least until the monkey has rested enough to cause further chaos. In her signature art style, Frazee slyly turns the previous narrative of loss into one of antic comedy just right for anyone who has wrangled a toddler: this time, when the circus train returns, the farmer looks downright relieved to embrace the solo life. Ages 4-8. (Sept.)