This is the seventh in a 34-part series of books telling the story of Monkey found in the ancient Chinese fantasy novel Journey to the West. In the previous volume, Friar Sand Joins the Pilgrims, the Bodhisattva helped Pig and Monkey subdue a river monster who then became Friar Sand, the Tang Priest's third disciple.
Stealing the Magic Fruit, illustrated by 78 colour pictures, tells what happens after the Tang Priest and his disciples arrive at the Five Village Temple on their way to the west to fetch the scriptures. Monkey and Pig steal and eat some magic fruit of immortality and after this is found out Monkey in a fit of anger destroys the tree. The abbot of the temple, the Great Immortal Zhen Yuan, catches the Tang Priest and his disciples and demands recompense for his tree. Only Monkey's ingenuity can save them.