I have two favorite stories in the book “A Treasury of Curious George,” which I’ve checked out of Marshall-Lyon County Library twice. The first “Curious George” book, by authors Margret and H.A. Rey, was published in 1941, and it has never been out of print. This treasury I have been enjoying is “illustrated in the style of H.A. Rey by Vipah Interactive and Martha Weston,” and the copyrights are dated individually for the eight stories from 1999 to 2003.

Many friends have answered yes when I asked them if they’ve read Curious George stories. On the bookshelves in the house I grew up in, we had books like “Heidi,” “Wind in the Willows,” and “The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew,” but no “Curious George.” So much of late summer and early fall, I’ve been reading Curious George stories and watching the DVDs.

The first story I’ll tell you about is “Curious George Visits the Library.” It’s the first time George has been in a library. He and the man with the yellow hat go to the children’s room where the librarian was reading a book to a circle of children sitting on the floor next to her. George didn’t listen very long, because he wanted to hear a book about dinosaurs being read. He finds this book he wants plus a few more to take home: books about trucks and elephants. He puts the books on a cart and starts to roll it out of the library. But he runs into a shelf of encyclopedias.

Children help put the books back on a shelf, and then a volunteer shows George how to get “his very own library card” (p. 164). As George and the man with the yellow hat leave the library, George waves to everyone. At the end of the story, they are sitting in a big chair at home and reading the book about dinosaurs.

The next story I really tuned in to is “Curious George and the Birthday Surprise.” George watches the ice cream truck go by and children and their dogs are enjoying ice cream treats. George decides to go in the house, and find fun things to play with. When he smells something good in the kitchen, he finds a cake! He mixes up some frosting ingredients, and when he uses the mixer, he ends up making it go faster rather than turning it off. So frosting flies all over the kitchen. This mess gets cleaned up by dogs he invites in the house for a treat.

Now the man with the yellow hat is back and he says “It’s time for a surprise” (p. 90). Many friends are here having fun. They are wearing birthday hats. George is invited to blow out the candles on the cake, and they all sing “Happy Birthday to You.” At the end of the story George makes a wish; we don’t know what it is, but we can sure imagine what he is wishing!

Some of George’s birthday story is different from my birthday parties when I was younger, but look at the picture taken in 1955. My friends and I sat around the dining room table and created a birthday hat to wear. I know my dress was blue, so maybe the hat I made has blue on it. A game we played was putting on a costume over the clothes we had on, then taking the costume off so the next person in line could put on the costume. We had two teams, so it was a contest about who could do all this costume business fastest.

Every story in “A Treasury of Curious George” I connect with in some way. In “Curious George Visits a Toy Store,” some other people join George in putting a hoop around their waist and spinning them. I had a Hula Hoop when I was about 10 years old and liked spinning it around my body. (One “MASH” program had people in Hula Hoops.) Maybe I’ll buy another Hula Hoop. Recently I did buy a small stuffed Curious George! Let’s see … who can I read Curious George stories to?

When a friend knew I was reading these books, he sent me the June 3, 2019 The New Yorker article, “The Unexpected Profundity of Curious George.” The first page of the article is a picture of Margret and Hans Rey. The article describes them leaving Paris in June 1940 when they heard on the radio that the Nazis would be invading soon. They ended up being in New York where people helped them; they didn’t have much money, and most of their luggage was gone. We read in this article that they had no children, but they did have “two marmoset monkeys.”

If I understand this correctly, the Reys wrote seven original tales about Curious George, and after those were published, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt published more “Curious George” stories that weren’t written by the Reys. Here I would need to be writing a long research paper to get into these details that interest me. If I were teaching now, I would have my students write a “Curious George” story. Another part of our study could be the colorful illustrations on every page.

The introduction to Mr. Rey in the back cover of one of the “Curious George” books tells that these books have been printed in more than a dozen languages.

I’ll continue watching the DVDs too. From reading the stories written by the Reys, I do think whoever put together the DVD stories kept them consistent with the original stories. I have notebooks with lots of my written accounts of the DVDs.

The last page of the first story, “Curious George Takes a Train,” shows a woman as the engineer on the first car of the train, with Curious George and a boy waving at passersby. Trains are in my history too.

You can find most of your childhood favorites, along with many recent treasures at your Marshall-Lyon County Library! mlclibrary.org