Curious George (book)

The idea for Curious George came from an earlier Rey work, Cecily G. and the Nine Monkeys. One of the characters in that story is Curious George. Margret and Rey then decided to create a book entirely focused on Curious George, which was an instant success. However, Margret Rey's name did not appear on early copies of Curious George because the publisher felt that children's literature was too dominated by women.[2]

The story opens with George, a little orphaned brown monkey, in the jungle of Africa. An unnamed man in a large yellow straw hat observes him through his binoculars and decides to bring the monkey home with him. He puts his hat on the ground and hides behind a tree. George, ever curious, comes down from the tree "to look at the large yellow hat." He puts the hat on but it is so large that he could not see and this gives the man in the yellow hat the chance to capture him and put him in a bag. The Man takes George in a rowboat to his cruise ship where he gets him out of the bag and then tells George that he is taking him to a zoo in a big city and that he will like it there. He then gives George the run of the ship and tells him not to get into trouble. On deck, George sees some seagulls, tries to fly with them, and falls overboard. Luckily, the crew notices that George is missing, and spot him in the Atlantic Ocean. They throw him a lifesaver and pull him aboard.

When they arrive in America, George says goodbye to the sailors, and then taken to the Man's house, where he has a meal, smokes a pipe, and then goes to bed. The next day, after seeing the Man make a telephone call to the zoo before leaving, George wanted to use the telephone too. He plays with the telephone (dialed the numbers 1 through 7) until he inadvertently calls the fire station (causing a false fire alarm). The fire alarm (at the fire station) goes off and the phone rings. When the firefighters hear the call, they rush to the telephone and hear no answer. Then they look at the map (on a screen) that shows them where the telephone call had come from. Then the location gets highlighted on the signal. They are unaware that it is George and think it is a real fire. Then they get on their fire trucks quickly. But when they rush to the house, all they find is no fire but a naughty monkey (which is George). Then a thin firefighter and a fat firefighter both grab George (after getting caught in the telephone cord). The thin one grabs one arm and the fat one grabs the other. After the firefighters catch him, they arrest him for the false alarm. They tell George that since he fooled the fire department, they will have to shut him up where he can't do any more harm. They take him away and shut him in a prison.

George attempts to climb out through the window in order to escape, but there are bars. At that moment, a watchman comes in and climbs on a wooden bed to catch George. The watchman however is so heavy that the bed tips over and pins him against the wall. This stalls the watchman and buys George enough time to run out the open door. He then climbs to the roof, and uses the telephone wires to get over the guard in front of the jail. Out in the street, he spots a balloon vendor and tries to grab a balloon, but ends up grabbing the entire bunch and flying off into the air. Down below, the houses and people looked like toy houses and dolls, respectively. George is carried by the breeze until it gradually stops, leaving George on top of a traffic signal, making the traffic mixed up. The Man finds him there, buys all the balloons from the street vendor, and finally takes George to his new home at the zoo, where each animal gets its own balloon.

Main articles: Margret Rey and H. A. Rey

Margret Elizabeth Rey (May 16, 1906 – December 21, 1996) and her husband Hans Augusto "H.A." Rey (September 16, 1898 – August 26, 1977) met each other in Brazil and then moved to Paris. After moving several places to escape the Nazis, they settled down in New York.[3][4] It was here that they wrote Curious George and seven other books about him including Curious George Takes a Job, which won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1960. The Reys then moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1963, in a house near Harvard Square, and lived there until Hans's death in 1977. A children's bookstore named Curious George & Friends (formerly Curious George Goes to Wordsworth) was started in the 1990s by friends of the Reys, and operated in the Square until 2011.[5] A new store opened in 2012 at the same address, called The World's Only Curious George Store - Harvard Square. In June 2019, this new store closed.[6]