Ook. Ook. Are you folks ready to go ape? It's another visit to kid friendly Shadyside and another book involving apes. Only this one is not of the aqua variety. But we have our old friend "cursed object" to deal with, so this could give us a good book, or a painfully mediocre one? Only one way to find out. Let's learn about The Tale of the Blue Monkey.
Of the CG covers for the books, I think this is the one that works the best. Mainly because it's just an up close shot of our titular blue monkey, who looks super unsettling with his bloodshot eye, his sharp teeth, and the one eye socket with no eye in it. It's the right kind of genuinely disturbing that does entice you to want to see what the book is actually about. So props to Jim Ludtke on some good work.
We open with Amanda Muller and her older brother Danny hearing a story from Bess, their babysitter. A story about the Fear family? Which makes sense because Amanda and Danny live on, where else, Fear Stre-
Dammit the book beat me to it!
Bess tells the two that members of the Fear family did live in their house years ago. But not the richer bunch, since I guess not all of the Fears could be super rich. The family had a son and daughter about the same age as Danny and Amanda. Across the street was a toy shop run by a toymaker whose toys were so amazing and so sought out that people thought the toymaker was a magician. Given that people were literally having fist fights over them, yeah maybe. Or maybe this predated Black Friday. One toy in particular caught the eye of the youngest girl of the Fear family. A blue monkey doll with button eyes. Though being poor she couldn't just buy it, but window shopping isn't a crime. What is a crime however is that on one night, the toymaker left the front window open, which gave the little girl her chance to snatch the monkey doll. What happened after that? Dude, we're like four pages in, we're not getting an answer yet. Reader beware, you're in for stalling!
Bess makes dinner for the kids while Danny watches a horror movie. Danny is twelve and far braver than Amanda who is a year younger and constantly called a chicken by Danny for her constant fear over most things. They usually stay somewhere else while their parents are gone, but both are cool with Bess, who looks like a sweet old lady who is great at telling really freaky horror stories. Suddenly the kids are scared by someone at their window! It's only Omar, their gardener, who has one blue eye and the other covered by a patch, plus a scar on his cheek. So, you know, maybe fair dos in them being freaked out. After he leaves, Bess continues the story. The little girl felt guilty for stealing the monkey doll and gave it back to the toymaker, who then says that she can keep it. She's excited, for a couple seconds before the toymaker starts laughing manically and saying that now she'll be cursed forever because the monkey will bring her doom. Moral of the story, don't steal, especially from evil toymakers. What happened to the girl? 13 pages in so we're again gonna stall for a bit.
While we wait for what comes next, Beth sends Amanda and Danny to the Kronck residence, which just so happens to be where the evil toymaker's shop once resided. They go to get some cocoa, but are greeted by the rather nice Mrs. Kronck and her far more gruff and angry husband, who is wheelchair bound and works in a workshop, which of course makes Amanda suspect he could also be a toymaker. Perhaps of the evil persuasion. Amanda suspects it even more since they moved into the house fifty years ago, which is also the time frame of the story about the evil toymaker. They see the workshop door is open and almost go in, but get caught by Mrs. Kronck, so no forbidden workshop of mystery for now. Now with the cocoa needed for Bess to bake, she continues the story, saying that the little girl's bad luck continued to escalate. Skinned knee, dropped teapot, ripped dress, her dog chewing on the monkey doll and choking to death. This wasn't written by Stine, but I have to imagine he perked up at the idea of a dead dog.
So, yeah. The monkey means business. Heh. Monkey business. But we go from a dead dog to her dad's leg being broken and finally their house catching fire, which is definitely a Fear family tradition. But after the house burned down, the little girl found the monkey doll in the rubble, undamaged, smiling at her with an evil grin. So she did what anyone would do in this situation: ditch the damn thing. As in she dug a ditch in the backyard, threw the monkey doll in there and buried it. So now Amanda suspects that this could mean the monkey doll is still there in their backyard. And after being called chicken for like the fortieth time this book so far, Amanda starts to dig outside later that night, but doesn't find any blue monkey doll just yet. And instead of, you know, not tempting fate, she decides she'll try again later. However, later becomes right after putting the shovel away as her foot gets caught in a gopher hole. When Danny helps free her, they spot something in the hole. They grab the shovel and dig up a strange looking old box.
They open the box and sure enough, there's a blue monkey doll in there. One black eye and one eye missing, but it's there alright. So now both kids are worried about being cursed, even Danny who the book has made out to be someone who just has the worst poker face when it comes to claiming he's not afraid of anything. But for now, they bring the monkey inside and hope to ask Bess about it the next day. Amanda wakes up to see Omar out in the garden and the monkey doll on her bed. She goes to the bathroom and sees that there's BLOOD ON THE FLOO-oh, wait. It's just Strawberry scented shampoo. Bess says that Amanda must have spilled some, so just a bit of bad luck, which sends Amanda in a paranoia spiral since she's already paranoid about the monkey doll. She then takes a shower and after finishing up sees the monkey doll on the count-oh, wait. It's back on her bed, despite her throwing it off before heading to the shower. Which, you'd think if you're paranoid about an evil doll, you wouldn't, you know, throw it around and make it angrier? Food for thought.
Another thing you'd probably want to avoid is throwing it in the trash can, which Amanda does. She then sees the lights on at the Kronck residence and sees Mr. Kronck in his workshop, swinging a knife around. Amanda doesn't pursue this any further given, you know, knife, and heads back to her place where she sees the monkey is on the shelf of her dad's workshop, as well as her collage art project all messed. Danny scares her again and calls her chicken. He also cops to putting the monkey doll on her bed and spilling the shampoo. Which, given he checks all the boxes of "Li'l shit", yeah I can see him being the mastermind. But with Bess now awake and it being a perfect time to do so, Amanda shows her the doll and asks for answers on if it's actually cursed or not. Bess says that technically for the curse to activate, the monkey doll has to be given to someone, so for the time being, there's no curse. So, until that happens, Amanda will just have to bide her time on how to get Danny back for everything he's done.
The next day, Danny is in a panic as his model plane is missing. This was Amanda's revenge. But when she goes to get the plane back, it's destroyed. And right at the scene of the crime is the blue monkey, eye now aglow with evil. So now both kids realize that Bess was wrong about it needing to be given to someone, as it's just giving them a curse right now. They take it to Amanda's room and talk about what to do. They then try to leave the room, but the door is sealed shut. Then they almost get hit by a conch shell from Amanda's shell collection. Maybe not the wisest thing to bring a cursed object into a room with sharp objects. They then look outside and see Mr. Kronck laughing while holding some sort of headless doll and a strange old book. After being attacked by a pencil jar, the kids manage to open the door and escape the room, while also taking the monkey doll. They're ready to get rid of it. And that's by lighting it ablaze on the barbecue grill. Even though the story said the monkey doll wasn't affected by the fire.
But the kids try it anyway, setting the monkey doll on the grill and lighting it. It doesn't work and instead the flames leap into the air and shoot at them. They avoid the blaze, but notice that the monkey doll has vanished. But neither are relieved since now they're convinced that Mr. Kronck must be the evil toymaker and that book must be the source of his power. If they destroy that, then that should be the end of all this horror, right? They sneak around later that night and see Mr. Kronck swinging his knife around some more. They run back home, but get scared by Omar, who talks about gopher holes and warns them to stay out of the backyard which, you know, that could have worked as a Goosebumps book. The kids then head to the kitchen to have some cake when suddenly Amanda STARTS BLEEDI-no, wait she just... wait, the knife she was using suddenly slips from her hand and stabs her hand and she actually starts bleeding? This book's kind of hardcore. And sure enough, there's the blue monkey on the fridge. So junior arson doesn't seem to be the key to killing this thing.
The kids look for Bess, but she's nowhere to be found. So, with no other alternative, they go to Mr. Kronck's workshop to get their answers. They find the headless doll and the book, but nothing that mentions anything about evil monkey dolls. Suddenly they're caught by Mr. Kronck, so reveals to them that he's not a toymaker, or even an evil variation of a toymaker, but rather a writer. He writes horror stories and uses his workshop to act out the scenes as he writes them. Reader beware, you're in for improv. He's a horror writer, writing about the many legends of Fear Street, taken by the book of terror, a tome once owned by the Fears. And the reason he didn't want them finding out was because he wanted his work to be a secret. Even though he was performing in a room that seemingly everyone could easily see from out their windows. Also Bess is still at home so yeah.
The next day, Bess tells them that the evil toymaker must still be around. But before she can elaborate more, Mr. and Mrs. Muller return. So now Amanda and Danny have to worry about their parents getting involved in this. That perhaps the monkey will do the same curses that befell the Fear girl. And, sure enough, it doesn't take long for Mr. Muller to end up breaking his leg. So while their parents are at the hospital, Bess returns to watch over the kids. While they wait for Bess, they grab the monkey so that they can watch over it, lest it does any more evil shenanigans. Suddenly they see Omar at the door, demanding they give him the monkey. The kids assume that this must mean that Omar was the evil toymaker all along. He chases after them, telling them that he must have the monkey. The kids run into Bess who confronts Omar. However, Omar tells them that this old woman was the real cause of everything. She isn't even named Bess. Her real name is Olga the toymaker. He mentions the fire fifty years ago, to which the kids don't believe him and chase him off. They see him holding matches and chase him off with a shovel this time. He leaves, saying they made a big mistake. Which they did because Bess immediately admits that she's Olga the toymaker. Whoopsy doodle!
Olga admits that she had seen Omar before. He is Omar Fear, younger brother of the little girl who took the blue monkey. He was looking for the monkey to get it away from Olga, who had come back to where the monkey was buried to retrieve it. She had planned this from the beginning. Planting the story of the monkey in Amanda and Danny's heads, enticing them to do the work of finding it for her. She says that this is all the fault of the Fear girl, and that she wasn't lying about it needing to be offered to someone, and she had offered it to the kids when she claimed it wasn't bad luck. So now the kids are going to have to do what she says, lest she puts a harsher curse on them. Olga then sends them to their rooms, with their toy monkey, of course. But before the kids are doomed, Amanda has a plan. Mr. and Mrs. Muller return home from the hospital. As Bess is about to leave, they stop her, saying that they had gotten her a gift while they were gone. She accepts the gift and inside is the blue monkey which Amanda had swapped with the pottery bowl that was the actual gift. Bess freaks out and leaves as the blue monkey doll blows in the breeze and clasps to her skirt.
So, the obvious question is, is this a better version of It Came From Beneath the Sink? In some ways, yes. I think that it being an evil doll over an evil sponge works in adding a bit more of a creep factor to it, though I still think the Grool as a concept works because it's so unsuspecting. That, yes, it looks like a sponge, but it's a sponge that siphons the luck and life force of whoever it curses. The monkey doll doesn't seem to have that. It's cursed and can cause bad luck, but unless you're a dog, it doesn't seem to actually kill you. And you can just bury it in the ground and it just stays there. And you can just leave without worrying about dying from being too far away from it. Maybe? I mean we never really learn when the Fear girl died after parting from the monkey. Could have been years after, could have been immediate. It's a fair, legitimate question, Stine. No, I don't think I need to get a life. But, like, if you had a better one for me, I'd be interested.
What I really like about this book though is that it ties itself to the Fear family. We don't get too much connectivity with proper Fear Street with these books. A reference to places like Dalby's or the cemetery, or some other lesser level things, but not much in terms of deep built stuff like the Fears. So I like that little wrinkle. And the idea that there would be Fear family members in the lower class who lived in poverty to the point they'd resort to theft is something I could buy, so it works for me. Granted, given the long standing curse on the fears, I'd imagine that if the monkey didn't get her, the general curse would. So perhaps the ultimate case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't." Amanda and Danny are decent protagonists, though Danny's constant "chicken" stuff gets annoying quick, but they work well together by the end. Mr. Kronck and Omar are decent misdirects and Olga works as a decent villain who turns out to be more evil than anyone would have suspected. If she had a mustache she'd be twirling it like a propeller.
Overall, this is up there in terms of solid Ghosts entries. I say it a lot, because it keeps happening a lot, but this definitely feels the most Goosebumps-like of any of the books I've read. Maybe because Elizabeth did a Bone Chillers and the GB Presents? I don't know. But while it doesn't tread too much new ground for a story about a cursed object, it does just enough to make it one of the better takes we've gotten. So a definite recommend. A book that's not perfect, but you'll still might go ape for. The Tale of the Blue Monkey gets an A-.
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