The Pink Monkey

Inspired by long-time Deaf cultural folklore (and often a perennial late-night fireside favorite), The Pink Monkey is re-created with fun word-play twists about a lost teenager who encountered an unusual creature in a stranger’s mansion.

While reading and interacting with this story, perhaps you will notice much-loved features: Exaggerations of perspective + scale. Colors. Quirky materials. Idioms. Sense of time. What’s real, what’s not real?

Packed with over 200 vocabulary words, signed and fingerspelled, and with 23 pages of ASL videos, this app is a proud addition to our collection of award-winning high-quality VL2 Storybook Apps.

The Pink Monkey is built and transformed into a storybook app for all ages retold through a digital educational mixed media approach using American Sign Language and English. Brought to you by Visual Language and Visual Learning’s Motion Light Lab.

This story is told in American Sign Language by Shira Grabelsky, a talented storyteller and proficient Deaf educator, and illustrated by JamiLee Hoglind, a digital collage buff and funky marketing guru.


VL2 Storybook Apps are designed based on proven research in bilingualism and visual learning to provide young visual learners an optimal reading experience.

Recent changes:
Pink Monkey is now available on Android!