Curious observations.
"This is George. He was a good little monkey, and always very curious."Curious George is currently at the top of Tegwyn's requested book list, so we have been reading a LOT of Curious George. However, I have discovered that not all Curious George books were created equal. There are the 'vintage' CG books from 50 years ago by H.A. and Margaret Rey... and in the last 10 years, Houghton Mifflin Publishers, who own all the right to CG, have put out a few more CG books "illustrated in the style of HA Rey."
They look similar, read similarly, and delight similarly (the monkey really does think just like a little kid!) - but it's been interesting to note 3 big differences between vintage George books and the modern ones - all signs of the times.
1) The older stories are, on average, 50 pages long. The new ones are 25. Whether that speaks to the patience of parents as readers or the attention spans of the modern mind, who knows.
2) Vintage George books all had at least one character who was smoking: pipes, cigars and cigarettes all were featured. None of that in the new ones. (It reminds me of the candy cigarettes we used to get as kids - thin sticks of white sugar, painted with a yellow "filter" and with a red "burning" tip at the end, sold in lookalike cigarette packets. We loved those things, and would suck on them until the cigarettes formed a pointed candy tip. can you even imagine a kid these days whipping out those candies at a party?)
3) While the plot of all the books involve curious (rather than malevolent) George getting into scrapes which then get worked out, the tone has changed. The vintage books had a note of reprimand for George's curiosity, and in situations where he was excluded or hurt because of his meddling, the author expressed a bit of a "poor George, but that's what you get for meddling" sentiment. George's curiosity causes trouble which must then be redeemed. In the modern books, George's curiosity has no negative tones. His meddling somehow seems to make things work out for the better. His curiosity causes trouble which then makes the world even better than it was. Interesting.
Of course, all of this is lost on my 2 1/2 year old. But I find it ... very curious.
posted by Bronwyn at 10:00 pm
4 Comments:
Very curious, indeed. In fact, a while back I dumped all the new Curious George books we had (well, put them in the give-aways), and bought off Amazon the big hardcover collection of the vintage ones. They are so different! The old ones are soooo much better. (Not that I have an opinion on this or anything.)
curiouser and curiouser :) Sorry I couldn't resist
Hope you have hours and hours of fun reading
The same is true of the Topsy and Tim books (have you discovered them yet??) The old ones are often not PC, while the new ones are. The old ones often have a much more real ending, instead of the sugary sweet "and they all lived happily ever after" endings you get now. Not that the new stories are any less enjoyable... it's just different. But I think I prefer the vintage ones.
love the observations! very true indeed. and, for another observation.... they call Curious George a monkey in the book, but he doesn't have a tail. That makes him an ape :)
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