Curious George (book)
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.[2]
Plot
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, 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 (1 through 9) 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 (and the fire alarm)
made by George, they rush to the telephone and hear no answer. There was no
answer but the firefighters did catch it on security
camera (not knowing that George fooled the
fire department). After taking it on security, they then looked at the map (the
signal screen). The signal 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. Forgetting that it was George, really they thought it was a
real fire. Then they get on their fire trucks quickly.
At
first sight, it turns out to be a real fire. But when they rush to the house,
all they find is no fire but a naughty monkey (which is George). Catching sight
of this, the firefighters then knew it really was George all this time. Then a
thin firefighter and a fat firefighter both grab George (after getting caught
in the telephone cord). 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 cannot do any more harm of himself. Upon saying this, they took him
away and shut him in 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.
George
later attempts to climb out through the window in order to get out of jail, but
there are bars. Then, a watchman comes in and climbs on a wooden bed to get
George out of jail. 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
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.
References
· · "Boston.com
News, By Mark Feeney Globe Staff".
The Boston Globe. September 17, 2005. Retrieved 2007-10-29.
· · "New
York Times, By Dinitia Smith".
The New York Times. September 13, 2005. Retrieved 2007-10-29.
·
"Boston.com
Culture Desk, By Doug Most". The Boston Globe. June 6, 2011.
Retrieved 2012-03-29.
No comments:
Post a Comment