The Three Royal Monkeys by Walter de la Mare (1910)

What an absolute delight. This is a magical tale of three monkey brothers who go in search of their father, and have great adventure along the way. De la Mare wrote ghost stories and poetry, and viewed children with their extraordinary imaginations as sort of creative visionaries. You can almost feel him reaching back for this here. There's an unbridled playfulness with language in this novel that prefigures CS Lewis and Tolkien - in fact I'd be surprised if de la Mare wasn't an influence on them. What's more, this heartwarming celebration of brotherhood is now available free online.