“Ohhh My Strawberry Monkey” – Club Hub UK Review

Happy Back to School Day Everyone. And what better way to start a new term is with a brand new Ohhh My Strawberry Monkey book!

When I saw “Ohhh My Strawberry Monkey” on Twitter I was immediately drawn to it. With it’s smiley face and cool illustrations I thought what child wouldn’t love this fun character. I was so happy to be asked to review this wonderful book that when it arrived in the post last week I put everything down and began to read.

“Ohhh My Strawberry Monkey” is a Children’s picture book, a story of friendship based around a cute, pink, lovable, but somewhat clumsy monkey created by Allan Thompson.

Somehow, Strawberry Monkey always seems to end up in these wacky! and crazy!

situations. Follow along as we watch Strawberry Monkey learn with the help of his friends Daisy, Dodger & Betty, who are always around to help.

Along with it’s bright colours and easy to read pages “Ohhh My Strawberry Monkey” has a fantastic message. Of course you’ll have to read the book to discover the important message at the end but it is something to do with the sun?!

As I was reading this fabulous children’s book I also realised how children will most certainly remember the story with it’s layout and structure, children are able to repeat “Oh My Strawberry Monkey” and join in with the reader.

Then I found their fantastic website where parents can download Strawberry Monkey’s certificates and task sheets for their own cheeky little monkeys. Download them, play and learn with your children!

Thoroughly Recommended by Club Hub UK

Words from the “Ohhh My Strawberry Monkey” Author

It wasn’t my intention to write and illustrate children’s picture books. I kinda fell into it. I’m a freelancer, I work on web and logo design, motion graphics, photography etc and I wanted a really cool name for my company. So, pen and paper in hand I just started to scribble down anything I could think off, food, animals, fruit, names, places, feelings ANYTHING.

Then it popped out to me on this once clean, now ink stained A4 sheet; Strawberry Monkey. It grabbed my attention and I was like ‘I LOVE THIS’.

I typed the name into GoDaddy to see if the domain was taken and they wanted a ridiculous amount for the name but offer a suggestion; My Strawberry Monkey. That’s how the name came around for the website, I then needed a logo! So I set about creating one and ended up after many, many attempts with the pink monkey head.

Still just freelancing at this time, probably around mid 2015 and just being to understand Instagram. Then I had a lightbulb moment! What if I created weekly comic squares, so Strawberry Monkey soon developed into a full character. Now April 2016 I uploaded a few images, it was aimed at adults initially, as the stories evolved I felt it more suited to children.

How to write a children’s picture book? Where do you start?

I begun my research, reading, looking at other characters out there, remembering my own childhood. By this time I had already created a tonne of images and realised that If I put them together I had a story, not the typical approach, but I like to do things just a bit differently.

Around a year later, 2017 I put out the first eBook whilst looking into options for a paperback version and printed a few test copies. I took a few months out from work at the end of 2017 as life became a bit stressful, after a while (now Jan 2018) I was reenergised and began to refocus and put my energy in the right direction and drown out all the noise. I created the site for the book, took the ebook down, made a billion changes and fixed all the errors, put it back up and found a way to publish the paper back and now I’m here.

Strawberry Monkey and Betty are the two main characters, in time others will be introduced, with 12 Wilford Road being a very special home, where the parents of Strawberry Monkey have adopted the other kids…

Ohhh My Strawberry Monkey, is a play on the words, ‘You cheeky little monkey’  and that’s certainly what he is and most parents have said those exact words many times. I know I’ve been called that many, many times. Strawberry Monkey is also a little bit clumsy at times and will cause a few chuckles, fortunately though he has his friend Betty around to help.

Even though I didn’t set out down this path, its been fun, rewarding and has allowed me to entertain my inner child and others. And all the skills I’ve learnt as a freelancer has been integral to where I am now with Strawberry Monkey. I didn’t see this coming, totally unexpected but super excited for the future. This is just the beginning.

Buy Your “Ohhh My Strawberry Monkey” Book Now!