As far as I can tell, Cloud Tea Monkeys is not a folktale from some remote remote, mountainous country, but it very well could be.  In this story, Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham have written a magical tale that is full of beautiful imagery and ends very happily.  Tashi is a little girl with a sick mother.  In fact, her mother grows so sick that she can no longer do her job as a laborer on a tea plantation.  Tashi tries to work in her mother’s place, but what little girl can do a full grown woman’s work?  After Tashi’s best efforts are ridiculed by the cruel Overseer, monkeys that Tashi had befriended during her many long days of waiting for her mother to finish working come to her rescue.  They take her tea basket and fill it to the brim with the leaves from the magical cloud tea plant that grows in the remotest regions at the top of the mountain.  The very satisfying conclusion of the story is that on the same day that this happens to Tashi, the Royal Tea Taster comes to the plantation in order to find the best tea for the Empress of All the Known World and Other Parts That Have Not Been Discovered Yet.  What timing!  Of course, Tashi is paid enough to both buy her mother’s cure and ensure that she never has to pick tea again.

Cloud Tea Monkeys is a long picture book–one of those that is about half pictures and half text.  Juan Wijngaard‘s illustrations are portrait-like.  All of the characters–Tashi, her mother, the Overseer, and the Royal Tea Taster, and the monkeys– and the beautiful setting are illustrated in such a way that really enhances the story.  The real star, though, is the writing.  This is a description from the second paragraph of the story:

Tashi took her bowl of sweet tea outside and stood beside the rough road in the blue morning.  The sun had not yet found a way through the mountains, but it was coming; a light the color of lemons was soaking into the sky and painting out the stars. 

Isn’t that lovely?  My girls and I were captivated by this story and so I give it a Highly Recommended. 

What’s on your read-aloud list this week?  Link up your posts in the comments!

Have a terrific Read Aloud Thursday!