Used by permission the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection, McCain Library and Archives, The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS. From the Margret and Hans Augusto Rey Papers. Margret and Hans: The Reys, both illustrators and writers, combined their inspirations to create Curious George and delight kids to this day. The little book that really got me hooked on the night sky was called Know the Stars, adapted from a longer work, Know the Constellations. But it was aimed at adults and older kids, and anyway the astronomy stuff was squeezed into a few pages at the end. I was lucky that my parents had books like Marvels and Mysteries of The World Around Us, a massive Reader’s Digest hardback that weighed as much as my head, which covered pretty much the whole universe. As a kid growing up in Nova Scotia, with a keen interest in the stars and the universe, I devoured all the science books that I could find. The first Rey book that I encountered, however, had no monkeys whatsoever. Some 30 million copies of the George books have been sold, in 19 different languages. George has also starred in six animated feature films, and, since 2006, a PBS television series.

It was followed by six more books the last one, Curious George Goes to the Hospital, appeared in 1966.

Curious George, known for letting his inquisitiveness get him into trouble and then using his ingenuity to get him out of it, has been entertaining children and their parents since 1941, when the first book of his adventures, simply titled Curious George, by the husband-and-wife team of Margret and H.A. He is without a doubt the most famous little monkey in all of fiction.

Curious george by ha rey