Margret Rey (1906–1996)

I feel torn in my review for this book. As a child, I read several of these books, and enjoyed them because as so many children were, I was blissfully unaware of poaching/kidnapping - which is basically what the man in the yellow hat does to George.

There is nothing mentioned of the danger of owning a chimpanzee (was the thing with Travis the chimp really over a decade ago now? Daaaaamn) but then this book was published in the 1940s, which was... really a different time in more ways than show more one.

So I will refrain from giving this book 1 star out of fairness, but I also would not recommend this as a children's book nowadays, at least not without a serious talk with the child about poaching, the exotic animal trade, et. al. show less

Curious George goes to the circus, is curious, and becomes the surprise star of the show. (Once again, in addition to being a colonialist animal thief, the man in the yellow hat is an incompetent caretaker; who tells a monkey "wait here" at a circus?)

[a:Maria Tatar|15620|Maria Tatar|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1302120613p2/15620.jpg], in the preface to [b:Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood|123002|Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood|Maria Tatar|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347437099l/123002._SY75_.jpg|118422], asks whether this is an "exemplary" or a "cautionary" tale. Do children admire & scheme to find ways to emulate the adventures show more of the monkey, or do they accept the moral lesson to be good & obedient, and to consider consequences, because said lesson is couched in a funny book with bright pictures?

Well, I say, don't underestimate children. I believe that many can hold both ideas in their minds simultaneously. Not only do many children surely react to it as *both* exemplary and cautionary, but they may also react to it by thinking "oh, I'll be more careful, I'm smarter than a monkey, I can have adventures without getting caught." They may also react to it by thinking "thank goodness my parents will always love me and not send me to a zoo." (Or, they may think "I wish I could go live in a zoo and not have to do chores or go to school...").

(Btw, these thoughts surely apply to many many other books for children about characters who are curious, or naughty, or who have poor impulse control...) show less

I have to admit that my daughter loves George. We even got her the plushy of her favorite curious monkey to go along with the tv series, and every night, she still requires us to bring down this book and have her daddy read it to her. She loves to snuggle and hug my face and say, "It's okay daddy, it's okay," whenever George jumps too far and breaks his leg or when he flies away into the great blue, getting sad because he'll never see the Man in the Yellow Hat.

Little does my daughter know, show more but I every time I read these pages to her, I want to slip in little things, like the Man in the Yellow Hat is actually the King in Yellow from Carcossa, and George's other name is Damian from Omen.

George was always too curious, that's why he climbed out of hell to find the King in Yellow. He was always a good little monkey. If only he wasn't so curious, he wouldn't have brought that damn book back with him to corrupt the world....

(I don't really do this to my daughter, of course, but my horror roots do make me giggle with that familiar spark of furious and never-ending desperate glee.) show less