Book Report: Curious George

By Akela Talamasca on April 24th, 2009

• Share
• Link to StumbleUpon
• 1 Comment

Having a child gives you the pleasing opportunity to re-read the classic stories of your youth. Sometimes, however, you may misremember the exact events of the book, and be somewhat surprised at the sections you encounter. This happens more and more often these days, as the socio-political climate has changed since the days when you were a kid. For these Book Reports, I’ll go over some classic stories and discuss some of the aspects of the story that you might find slightly wanting, and how to negotiate the challenge of reading them to your child.

Curious George, by H.A. Rey, is a cute story about a mischievous monkey, but it does have a few elements that deserve attention. First, depending on your opinion of zoos, you may want to consider that the Man in the Yellow Hat is guilty of essentially poaching George from his home and bringing him to America to be put into the zoo, where he tells George “You will like it there.” Our son had trouble with this, feeling that a zoo wouldn’t have enough room for George to run around in, compared with his original home, the jungle.

A little later, George smokes a pipe right before going to bed. This is a little trickier to explain, as the smoke is clearly shown rising from the pipe. In the end, we just leave that part unspoken and move on.

Later, you get the chance to explain to your child that calling the firehouse — or 911 — at any time is only to be done in an emergency, and not frivolously as George does. It’s unlikely that the offender would be incarcerated as George is, but it is quite a serious matter.

And speaking of that, George goes to jail! Pretty serious for a kid’s book. He escapes quite handily, of course, but this too is sort of a strange thing to explain to a young boy who already holds quite a fascination for all things police-related. He’s savvy enough to know that “bad people” go to jail, but not quite sophisticated enough to know exactly what happens in jail. I remember having to tell him after repeated questions that no, it isn’t that easy to just escape, and that yes, people sometimes stay there for quite a while.

But he escapes, goes on to steal some balloons, gets rescued, and ends up in the zoo after all, though all other books in the series has George living with the Man in the Yellow Hat. From the adult perspective years later, it’s sort of a strange story to re-encounter, with its casual handling of otherwise serious events. And while most children will just accept the events at face value, it’s always a good idea to be prepared to answer what might be difficult questions.