Curious George is a children's book written and illustrated by Margret Rey and H. A. Rey, and published by Houghton Mifflin in 1941. It is the first book in the Curious George series and it tells the story of an orphaned monkey named George and his adventures with the Man with the Yellow Hat.
Background
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.
Plot
The story opens with George, a little orphaned brown monkey, in the jungle of Africa. An unnamed man in a large yellowstraw 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, has a meal, smokes a pipe, then goes to bed. The next day, after seeing the Man make a telephone call to the zoo before leaving, George wanted to telephone too. George dials the numbers over and over again. He plays with the telephone until he inadvertently calls the fire station. He inadventently calls the fire department which is indeed 9-1-1. When the firefighters hear the call made by George, they rush to the telephone and hear no answer. Then they look at the map that shows them where the telephone call had come from. When the location highlights on the map screen, it is shown to be George at his house, and George appears on the now-shown location. They at first are unaware that it is George. They thought it was 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. Then a thin firefighter and a fat firefighter both grab George. The thin firefighter grabs one arm and the fat one grabs the other; and they arrest him for the false fire alarm. The fat firefighter tells George that since he fooled the fire department, they are going to have to shut him where he can't do anymore harm of himself. Therefore, they take him away and shut him in a prison. Now George is given a sentence in jail for an indefinite period of time. This is for the false fire alarm and a false call to the fire department. After a couple of years in jail have passed, George attempts to climb out through the window in order to get out of jail, but there are bars. Some days later, a watchman comes in and climbs on a wooden bed to get George out of prison. 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 and escape. He then climbs over the guard in front of the jail on the telephone wires. 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 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.
About the authors
Main articles: Margret Rey and H. A. Rey Margret Elizabeth Rey and her husband Hans Augusto "H.A." Rey met each other in Brazil and then moved to Paris. After moving several places to escape the Nazis, they settled down in New York. 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 was started in the 1990s by friends of the Reys, and operated in the Square until 2011. A new store opened in 2012 at the same address, called The World's Only Curious George Store - Harvard Square.
