Curious George books (skip)
There are so many fun Curious George stories, that it doesn’t hurt to skip a few here and there when the story has enough behaviors or situations that have to be discussed or explained at length to a little one. This post covers the handful of books we’d skip (at the time we originally wrote this there is only one story we’ve encountered).
Curious George (1941): This is the first book in the series and it has a lot of behavior I don’t like my little one seeing. George and the man in the yellow hat both smoke cigars, and considering most little ones think of George as a kid, this is a bit concerning. George is basically kidnapped in a bag and later put in a prison. He also crawls on power lines and one of the police officers is described as “fat”. Overall, the story just didn’t feel right based on the kidnapping in Africa and taking the monkey from his home against his will.
Curious George Goes to the Aquarium (1984): It seems to me the further back in time the story was written in this series, the more likely we are to skip it. We read this one, there’s nothing offensive to it, but we don’t repeatedly read this one. George’s curiosity in this story is naughty and if a child was to get the idea to do what George did it would both cause a parent to panic and get them kicked out of an aquarium. Plus the guards are mean and I hate that type of interaction in these stories. I like my little one to think of police and the like as someone who will protect my little one, not chase them and yell at them. The one thing my little one did like was the emotion of the people in the drawings and at one point said enthusiastically, “they are having a blast!”
