<P> The book is set at the end of the nineteenth century . The protagonist is a 14 - year - old boy named Jay Berry Lee , who had enjoyed an idyllic childhood . Born to Missouri sharecroppers , he moves with his family to Oklahoma after his grandfather offers them free land . Daisy , his sister , has a crippled leg , and they devote much effort to gaining enough money to pay for reconstructive surgery . One day , while looking for their lost milk cow , Jay Berry discovers monkeys in a nearby river bottom . Visiting his grandfather 's store , he learns that they have escaped from a travelling circus , which has offered a vast reward for their capture : $100 for the chief monkey , `` Jimbo '' , and $2 each for the others . Jay Berry makes multiple attempts to capture them using traps and a net borrowed from his grandfather , but he gains only scratches and bites from them , at one point even losing his pants in the process . </P>
where does summer of the monkeys take place
Oklahoma