Good thing, too, because during the couple of weeks they were out, we had some downpours. I’d covered the signs with packing tape as a sort of laminate against rain. We had some signboards outside that I’d drawn (apologies to Eileen Christelow for the imperfect renditions). We’d bought a couple of Barrel Full O’ Monkeys games and popped those on the sheet cake.Īnd even though the Harvest Festival and a giant soccer tournament were going on during the busy Columbus Day weekend, families turned out in numbers for the monkeys’ birthday party.

They were invited to enjoy cake or cupcakes and apple cider on the porch, after leaving the bookstore (a sticky-page-saving endeavor that worked like a charm). We had party treats for the kids set up outside on a table for children after the lively reading, drawing, and Q&A. But the first book in the series did, indeed, turn 25 this month, and we had the privilege of celebrating that milestone with a store full of real toddlers in party hats, who enthusiastically chanted along as Eileen Christelow read her books aloud.īecause of the way the event was set up in the store, there was no way to get behind the group to take photos of the backs of the kids’ heads (we don’t show their faces for privacy reasons), so you will have to take my word for it that they were ADORABLE! And the gasps and the looks on their faces watching Eileen draw her monkeys was priceless she was making beloved characters appear out of thin air! Those little monkeys are so mischievous, and channel toddler energy so impishly, that it is impossible to think of them as 25-year-olds. I suspect this is true in the rest of the country, too. You can’t mention “five little monkeys jumping on the bed” to anyone in Vermont and have them NOT be familiar with the colorful series of exuberant picture books by Eileen Christelow. Eileen Christelow drawing one of her little monkeys.

Five little monkeys eileen christelow