Monkey Town (novel)

Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial is a 2006 novel written by American author Ronald Kidd.

Frances Robinson, a fifteen-year-old daydreamer, lives in Dayton, a small town in Tennessee.

However, things bounce out of normal range when her father, the school board chairman, arrests local teacher (and Frances' friend and love interest) John Scopes for teaching Charles Darwin's evolution theory in class, in an effort to attract publicity to the town.

The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books reviewed Monkey Town, stating that "Though the book rewrites a few bits of history to make its point, it's not the wholesale revisioning of Inherit the Wind, and the story is filled with authentic and lesser-known details.

"[4] In their review the San Francisco Chronicle wrote "Kidd does his best to blend the historical bits into the coming-of-age narrative, and the result is a very smooth read, with no breaks into discussions of Darwin's life story or extraneous details about the time period.