Little Monkey's One Safe Place

Book - Little Monkey's One Safe Place
Author - Richard Edwards
Age - 2 - 5 years

One of my favorite books to read to Catherine when she was around two years old was Little Monkey's One Safe Place. It is about a little monkey who goes off to play in the jungle by himself. He takes a nap on a branch and wakes up during a storm. He gets scared and swings off to find his mom at home.

When he finds her she tells him everything is OK. She tells him that he just needs to find his safe place when he is scared. This sends him off on an adventure to find his safe place. He searches all over for his safe place, but each place he looks has something scary there. He looks in the hole of a tree but finds a snake. He goes to a small island but confronts a crocodile. Finally, he goes back to his mom and tells her that he could not find his safe place. She tells him that she is his safe place. Whenever he is scared or lonely just to come back to her.

It was always at this point that Catherine would say "mommy and daddy are my safe place" in her sweet little baby voice that was quite endearing. I would give her a hug and kiss and tell her that I would never let anything hurt her. As she got older this turned in to conversations about what she should do if the house was on fire or if someone broke into our home. She liked to walk through the various scenarios. Amazingly they never seemed to scare her.