Cloud Tea Monkeys

Amazon Editors recommend this book for readers who enjoy chapter books with more complexity or entry-level middle grade novels.

Carnegie Medalist Mal Peet and his wife, Elspeth Graham, team up for a captivating, lushly illustrated tale evoking a Chinese legend. (Age 4 and up)

A Junior Library Guild Selection

Tashi lives in a tiny village at the foot of the mountains, below the tea plantations where her mother works. When her mother falls ill, Tashi goes alone to the plantation, hoping to earn money for the doctor. But she is far too small to harvest the tender shoots, and her clumsy efforts anger the cruel Overseer. She is desolate, until -- chack-chack-chack! -- something extraordinary happens. Inspired by a centuries-old legend of tea-picking monkeys, here is a richly told tale full of vivid characters: the heartless Overseer, the enigmatic Royal Tea Taster, and -- far away -- an empress with a penchant for tea.

Husband and wife team Mal Peet (1947–2015) and Elspeth Graham wrote four books together: Cloud Tea Monkeys, Mysterious Traveler, Night Sky Dragons and The Treasure of Pirate Frank. Mal Peet also authored several YA novels, including the Carnegie Medal–winning novel Tamar, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor BookLife: An Exploded Diagram and three Paul Faustino novels: Keeper, The Penalty, and Exposure.

Juan Wijngaard has illustrated more than thirty books for children, including Shakespeare’s Globe: An Interactive Pop-up Theatre and the Kate Greenaway Medal–winning Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady. He lives in New Mexico.