Monkey Island

by Paula Fox

A story about the tough and frightening world of New York's homeless seen through the eyes of Clay, an 11-year-old boy abandoned by his mother. the author won the American Book Award for "A Place Apart" and the Newberry Medal for "The Slave Dancer".

Genres: Fiction, Young Adult, Childrens, Realistic Fiction, Survival, Middle Grade, Family Life

Paperback

First published September 1, 1991

About the author

Paula Fox was an American author of novels for adults and children and two memoirs. Her novel The Slave Dancer (1973) received the Newbery Medal in 1974; and in 1978, she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal. More recently, A Portrait of Ivan won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 2008.

A teenage marriage produced a daughter, Linda, in 1944. Given the tumultuous relationship with her own biological parents, she gave the child up for adoption. Linda Carroll, the daughter Fox gave up for adoption, is the mother of musician Courtney Love.

Fox then attended Columbia University, married the literary critic and translator Martin Greenberg, raised two sons, taught, and began to write.

Reviews

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

"'You told me the story of your life when I first came, and it took you about three minutes,' Clay remarked.
'That was an outline. Each time you tell the story, there's more. . . . . Any life is infinite. Imagine a single hour, all that happens in it.'
'But what if I'm reading, or just staring at something for an hour?' asked Clay.
'Do you think your brain leaves town? It's always working, with or without your permission. What you think and feel is as much of a story as the things that happen outside you.'"

"He was alone as they were alone. He was just another person, ageless, in trouble, out of ordinary life, out of the time that ruled the lives of people hurrying past the park on their way to work or home."
"'To hold on to neatness, call it staying neat in a cyclone. Call it what you like. All of us, living as we must, disgust the people who bother to look at us. They blame us for the way we look and smell. They're scared of really poor people.'
'But poor people are scared of each other too,' Clay said, thinking about the hotel.
'That's true, but the reasons are different. As I was saying, people begin to think of us as nasty stains on the sidewalk, nasty things in their way.'"

"He came back to the chair, saying, 'When I was young, you could make up a life . . . a little work here or there . . . keep yourself decent . . . even save a few dollars. If Robinson Crusoe was washed up on the shores of that island nowadays, he'd find a used car lot there, and before he could get a job sweeping the asphalt, he'd be asked for his papers, his degrees, and his work background.'"

"'This doghouse is coming apart. It won't last another week,' Calvin went on severely. 'Listen to me. We live in days, not weeks and months. Each day can be a year. We think . . . at the end of a day . . . how we made it. Again. Only because we found an old coat, only because some people don't bother to turn in their cans and bottles, only because somebody gives me change, somebody who doesn't care if I make a few dollars that way because such a somebody knows what a terrible life it is. Other people say, You like the pavement---you must be making hundreds of dollars a week! Maybe some of us do, but we have to lick the sidewalks for it.'"

"Mrs. Greg looked serious. 'You're right, Clay. But not entirely. There are so many people in trouble, and not enough money, and not enough really good ideas to make things better. We try to make a very tight net so people won't fall through the way you did. But now we've caught up with you, and you'll be all right.'"

"When he couldn't hear the teachers' voices through the din, he watched their lips. In time, he got pretty good at guessing what they were saying. He wrote it all down and did his homework regularly. Sometimes he could escape into the library, which smelled of paste and dust and books, and where it was quiet like a cove you could row your boat into to get out of the gale wind."

"It wasn't that Buddy and Calvin hadn't known he was a child. But in some deep way, he'd been on his own. He'd been one of them.
It filled him with a somewhat spooky hilarity to realize that he had real thoughts of his own. From the time you learned to talk, he thought, people were always saying, Think about what you're doing! Don't be thoughtless!
One of his thoughts was that people only saw you when you were standing in front of them."

"'Yes,' Clay croaked. It was hard to talk. Whenever he meant to agree with Henry, to say how glad he was his mother had been found, an opposite feeling would push up behind his words. But it wasn't that he was not glad. It was rather that he couldn't understand at all why the small explosions of joy that rose up in him became muted at once as if they couldn't make their way through a dense cloud of bewilderment and discontent."

"'You suffered,' his mother said in so low a voice, he had to lean forward to hear her. 'I know you did. I thought about it all the time, and about Daddy going away. If saying sorry was enough, there'd be no hard feelings in the world. I am sorry, but what can you do with that? They told me how you lived---like a stray animal, and then sick and alone in the hospital. Sorry can't erase all that. There must be a way for people to go on caring for each other that's a long way beyond sorry.' She looked up at him and smiled hesitantly."

"The word had slipped out. Clay thought about it. He couldn't take it back. That would mean trying to explain the tangle of feelings he had about his mother and his father---and home. The tangle was something inside him, alive and mysterious. When he'd said home just now, it seemed for a moment that everything in his life was clear, that the tangle had disappeared."

"'What's a place beyond forgiveness?' he asked Buddy urgently.
'Your own room,' Buddy said. 'You have to go your own way.'"

[Anna Zehr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poverty, its difficulties and possibilities, are seen through the eyes of an eleven year old boy. Addressing topics of poverty, homelessness, racism, and prejudice, this is a book I hope our middle school students will pick up and read. A potential read-aloud for middle grade teachers wanting to expand the world of their students.
"Don't wander around the streets. There are nightmares walking around looking somewhat human. But they aren't." Without being too gritty, the author manages to convey some of the dangers of street life.

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clay Garrity was a young kid in New York. His life was normal, until his jobless dad left the family and never returned. His pregnant mother was struggling to paid the bills and later left the family as well. Clay wakes up the fallowing morning asking himself " where is my mom?". This is not the first time that Clay wakes up in the morning to find that his mother missing, so he patiently waited for her to return, but after a few days he comes to the conclusion that she will never come back. Fearing that the next door neighbor will call the police and sent him to a foster home, Clay starts searching for his mother on the streets of New York City. In the streets Clay meets two homeless men, Buddy and Kelvin, that help him survive the cold and dangerous nights. When will he find his mom? Or will he find her at all? Where is his dad? Is he going to a foster home?

I enjoyed reading this book. It was well written by tbe author. She did a great job portraying the struggles that homeless people experience and each of the characters was well developed. This story could happen to anyone, reading this realistic fictional book taught me to be more graceful for what I have because there are kids like Clay that end up losing everything and are sent to foster homes.

I would recommend this book to a friend. Everyone knows that homeless people don't have a home. Sadly that's all most people know. This book illustrates that reality that homeless individuals face daily, which is much more then not having a home. Monkey Island would open the minds of a few of my ignorant friends, who think that their life is difficult. I'm sure someone who is homeless won't find having 3 meals a day and a roof to sleep under a difficult life.

[Elise · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is pretty intense. I'm not really sure I'd classify it as a "kid's" book. Maybe young adult. But the material is pretty mature, and the language as well. It's pretty tragic. The ending is positive, but not exactly happy. I thought the author did a great job dealing with the emotions and making it realistic, but it isn't a happy topic, so realism means it's somewhat depressing. Still, a good read for a mature reader.

[Vance Bartelt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I thought this book was interesting and also confusing. It was fun to read tho. Clay's dad and mom left him because they couldn't afford the apartment they were living in. So everyday clay sits around his house sneakily and he goes to the park sneakily. He watches out for police or order kids that might hurt him and take his stuff. I didn't like how this book was so confusing and didn't explain a lot. It was decent but I wouldn't recommend it to anybody. Unless ur really old. I think old People would like it because it's really slow and confusing.

[Corine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about a boy named Clay, who has a dad who has lost his job and actually left one day without any reasoning. The dad abanded clay, his pregnant wife. They end up becoming very poor and have to live in a wellware with no money. Clay eventually ends up living on the streets after his mother disappers. Clay meets these 2 homeless guys that help him survive. The rest of the story is about clays survival in his hard life and all of the obstacles he has to go through to survive.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book because my son was reading it for a book report. Though written to be easy to read, it was a decent read. It certainly dealt with very adult themes and part of it was almost a little believable - the thought that a young boy would evaluate his options and truly think that going to the streets on his own would be workable is somewhat believable. All-in-all, even though I read it to support my son, I'm not sorry I read it.

[Kayin Hammond · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this book because it's about a kid who has to survive on his own on the streets, and it's so cool.Another reason I like it is because the kid knows how to survive and gets help. I recommend this to people who like stories about serious things and newfound then lost things.

[Jordan Chamorro · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that you most definitely want to read. It is packed full action and conflict and is extremely well written. I recommend this to anyone who loves drama.

[Elizabeth Fuller · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was actually a 3.5 star read for me. I think it does a good job of introducing a tough topic for middle school readers, but at the same time, it also tends to gloss over some of the more difficult aspects of homelessness, and also kind of sugar-coats the portrayal of our nation's too often less-than-effective homeless and family services systems. I did like that in the end, even though Clay is reunited with the mother who abandoned him to the streets, he definitely has deeply mixed feelings about the reunion. But the fact that almost everyone else Clay encounters on his journey, including his social workers and foster parents, are uniformly supportive and helpful, is more than a bit unrealistic - which any number of actual memoirs on the topic will tell you. Also, having a family put back together in safe, clean housing after only a few months of difficulty seems way too optimisitc (the reality is that this is all too rare for many distressed families, even after several *years* of navigating our byzantine maze of social services). So it is probably worth reading...but it should probably be pressented with a deep discussion after reading, and the inclusion of other books on the topic, which don't tie things up quite so quickly or tidily.

[Bärbel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ehkki raamatu esikaas reklaamib seda kui lasteraamatut, liigitaks mina ise ta pigem noorteromaaniks. Raamatu peategelane on 11-aastane Clay, kes ühel päeval avastab, et ta ema on nende ajutisest elupaigast lahkunud ning tundub, et ta ei plaanigi tagasi tulla. Clay on üksi keset Manhattanit, ta ei tea isegi, kust järgmine toidupala tuleb, ning tema suurimaks hirmuks on kontakt politsei või sotsiaaltöötajatega, sest see tähendaks, et ta ema ongi jäädavalt kadunud.
Kuna mul endal on selles vanuses lapsed, siis oli väga raske ja kurb lugemine. Aga olgem ausad, ega vaesus ja kodutus ei olegi teemad, millest lugemine kerge olema peaks. Kogu tänavaelu anti edasi läbi lapse silmade. Muidugi üllatas kõige enam see, et Clayl oli võimalik nii kaua tänaval elada, enne kui ta lõpuks ikkagi kardetud sotsiaaltöötajate juurde saadeti. Ja päris raamatu lõpp oli vähemalt minule üllatav, ootasin justkui teistsugust lahendust.
Esmakordselt avaldatud 1991.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want everyone to read Paula Fox. Naturalistic, subtle, multi-layered writing for children. She is so adept at showing children the different ways people behave without needing to explain it all to them. It is like she is telling them the world can be a confusing and scary place, but we don't need to understand it for things to be okay. Even when they're not okay.

This book starts with the main character being deserted by his mother and he becomes homeless. A very careful presentation of the story and safe for children to read.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suspenseful, sad, hopeful.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Terrible writing but a great story for my kid who is interested in homelessness.

[Cristian Mateo]

I don't care!!!!!!!

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Painfully moving story only too true-to-life, and the vital needs of people and children fallen on hard times. It gives words to thoughts from a child hurting deeply.

[Suzanne Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very lovely YA book about a boy who is abandoned in NY city. Realistic and well done.

[Halifax · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audiobook. Short but sweet.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is okay. I would say that it is a more mature book and not for younger kids. It was also confusing at times, but it had a good ending.

[Sue Schleeter · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a very short feel good book. I enjoyed it.

[Maximiliano · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed most of this book, however there were times where I was a bit confused and surprised, and at the end I thought clay would find his father or find a lead of some sort.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

He leaves his hotel and sleeps in the park with Buddy and Calvin. Buddy was a janitor at a zoo but they got rid of him. Calvin was a 10th grade math teacher. Gerals is a man who gives coffee and donuts to the homeless people. Clay goes back to his hotel and sees Tony, a boy his age. He had a bruise on his cheek that is probably from his dad who has a temper. He threw a TV out the window because the volume wasn't working. He goes up the elevator aand saw the word STOp written in red crayon. These mean kids that Calvin called the stump people cam through the park and scared away all the homeless people. They couldn't fnid Calvin. Buddy said he probably went off and got drunk. Buddy and Clay slept in a church basement. They found Calvin but he was out cold he was sent to the hospital with Clay becasue Clay had pneomonia. In the hospital room there was a nother boy who had a condition where if he got a cut, his blood wouldnt clot so it would keep bleeding. He tells Clay he just deals with it. His nurse , Alicia, is really ugly but rerally nice to Clay. For Christmas, she gets him a toy red double decker bus. He pretends everyone he knows is in it but he remembers a bad memory and tries to shake everyone out. He meets a lady from Social Services named Mrs. Greg and he tells her everything that has happened so for during those 5 weeks of being homeless. Buddy tells Clay that Calvin is in a coma and probably won't make it. He brings a donut from Geralds but Clay dosent want it. Buddy has been in a shelter because it freezing ouside. He buys Clay a new copy of his favorite book, WRobinson Crusoe, because the stump people ruined it. He has a foster family named Mr. and Mrs. Biddles. She meets him in the hotel and gets him a new coat and takes him home. He is really quiet with them and does whatever they ask him to do. He goes to a new school and meets a friend named Earl. They pass the park and Clay tells Earl that he was homeless before this. EArl tells him that his cousin was homeless. He walks him home. He meets with mrs. greg again and find out that they have found his mom. She has been staying in a women's shelter and had her baby. Her name is Sophie. Clay isn't too happy to be back with his mom because he was angry at her for leaving him. She pretty much had a nervous breakdown. She thought that she couldnt take care of Clay anymore so she just left. He sees Buddy again and he has turned his life around. He has a job and had $800 and when he gets to $1000, he will rent an apartment. He is taking night classes for high school. Clay guesses Calvin probably died. He says bye to Buddy and goes back home. His mother says that Sopie will soon recognise him. When she woke up from her nap she giggned and smiled at Clay. THE END :)))

[Angie Fehl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Garrett, age 11, lived the good life for a time. He had parents who were in love and who loved him, a father with a good job in NYC and a mother there whenever he needed her. Then one day his dad unexpectedly gets laid off from that seemingly solid job and all quickly goes to pot. While Garrett's father falls into a bit of a depression, his mother quickly takes some computer courses before getting a job to save the family finances. Unfortunately, Garrett's mother quickly advancing in her job only worsens his father's depression. Unable to handle the hit to his pride, Garrett's father just disappears one night. While trying to figure out what happened to her husband, Garrett's mother also resolves to be strong for her son as well as her unborn child -- which works... for a bit.

Garrett wakes up one day to find that now his mother has vanished. No clues to her whereabouts, only a little bit of money left under a box of stale donuts. After a few days without word from her, Garrett realizes he's alone in this grimy, run-down, junkie-riddled subsidized housing hotel. When the neighbor across the hall discovers Garrett has been left alone, Garrett makes a run for it in hopes to avoid being snatched up by Child Protective Services. Once outside, he has no idea where to go but quickly gets help from a couple of homeless men who offer to share their humble makeshift shelter. Garrett ends up staying with the men for a few months, relying on them for his survival throughout winter, as well as getting a first hand experience in homelessness. During this time he is also searching for any clues on his mother's whereabouts.

Don't wander around the streets. There are nightmares walking around looking somewhat human. But they aren't.
~Calvin, one of the homeless men who offer Garrett their protection on the streets

The pace of the story moved well and I liked that the novel brought some realities of homelessness to young readers, but as far as action goes, I was hoping for a little more. For such a young boy out on the streets for most of the novel, much of the plot was made up just of his having conversations. There was one tense moment involving a riot, but that was about it. I think this is worthy of a read for the questions and discussions it's bound to bring about, but plot-wise it was just so-so for me.

[Adriana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another sad story about a boy named Clay that ended up in a really sad experience in his life. His dad lost his job and left one day without saying a word to anyone. He left his wife who was going to have a baby and 11 year old son Clay by themselves. Clay and his mother lived in a welfare hotel with no money, no job and didn't know how they were going to survive. After awhile Clay's mother disappears aswell so Clay ends up in the streets where he find two homeless men that help him survive. The two men and Clay become a small family with shelter, food and friends but only in thier own world called "Monkey Island". Clay is not very healthy and gets pneumonia and ends up in the hospital for a couple days. Their he sees his pregnant mom but is still put into a foster home.

I ended this book with amazement. I couldn't believe how great it was and how much I loved it. The experience of this boy made me feel horrible and sad for the people dealing with these issues now these days.

It was a great book to read and I would recommend it to everyone. I think you would really enjoy reading this book.

[Martin Peko · Rating 5 out of 5]

PROS

One major plus of this book was its seemed very realistic. It did this by being very descriptive to display what Clay, the main character, was going through while on the streets of New York. I felt it also did a good job of keeping my attention throughout the story because it was very interesting. Finally, I really liked seeing the characters Calvin and Buddy in the story because they are the types of guys who, despite being homeless, are still very nice people and deserve a lot more than they have.

CONS

Overall, this was a pretty short book. I would have liked to see it be a bit longer maybe to clear up the resolution a little more. It seemed to me like it ended a little too quickly after Clay was put in the hospital. The only other con I thought the book had was I think the timeframe for the setting was hard to pick up on or understand at the beginning of the book because I don't think it ever really describes it in very much detail.

RECOMMENDATION

I would recommend this book for anyone who is looking for an easy-read and nice story. The realistic effects in this book really drew me in and I enjoyed it a lot. Overall, great book.

[Kim Van Sickler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wonder what today's middle schoolers would think of it? Published in 1991, it's a quiet story of a boy who becomes separated from his parents through no fault of his own and lives on the streets for while. When he becomes sick and is taken to the hospital, he must decide to stay and cooperate as social services steps in to try and help, or flee back to the streets to continue the search for his parents and Buddy, the young black man who looked after him when he became homeless.

It's such a departure from the fast-paced, action-packed stories for boys that I see today, I wonder if today's audience would be receptive to it. But I hope they would be. Clay endures a family falling apart, but manages to hold on and help in the recovery. We root for him to find a better alternative than the street and wonder if he'll ever feel part of a family again. It's a book to make us all appreciate how lucky we are to have families and a roof over our head, or if we don't, to feel hope that someday soon our fortunes will change.

[Books Kids Like · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clay Garrity's father loses his job at the magazine. When he can't find another job, Mrs. Garrity begins working nights. Then, she becomes pregnant. Unable to cope with the situation, Mr. Garrity leaves his family and disappears. When the baby's life is threatened by the added stress, Mrs. Garrity is forced to quit work. Soon she and Clay move into a government subsidized apartment. One day, Mrs. Garrity disappears, too. After five days of waiting for her return, Clay runs away because he is afraid to let Social Services take him to foster care. He wanders the streets for hours and is, finally, befriended by two men sleeping in a park. Weeks later when he contracts pneumonia and is taken to a hospital, a social worker starts visiting Clay. Despite his initial misgivings, this turns out to be a very good thing for him.
©2024 Kathy Maxwell at https://bookskidslike.com

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had read an interesting article about Paula Fox a couple of years ago in the New Yorker and have wanted to read her since then, this is the first book of hers I have read. She writes for adults as well. I read the book in an evening. It was a gripping narrative wvwn though quite a bit of it just traced the main character's thoughts. I really had no idea which way it would go, as she didn't shy away from brutal and cruel twists.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fox portrays the terror of being a homeless child (and later a ward of the state) with simplicity, and many children will find something to relate to in Clay's quest to care for himself and his missing mother. However, Fox's language stumbles at times. Her attempt at a timeless setting also fails, making it distracting.

[Duane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. The author does a good job of portraying the thoughts, fears, and realities of a young boy who is facing a uncertain future out on the streets. I think most young people will enjoy this book because it shows that even though you're young, you can still have bravery in uncertain times.