The original Curious George is a delightfully anachronistic book about a monkey whose friend was a man with yellow straw hat. That's it. Each of the books in the serious has the same premise; the man with the yellow hat tells George not to go out, then he leaves and predictably George gets into trouble until the man reappears at the end to save him. Every book is the same in that way, however the later books that weren't written by the original author change significantly though they stick to that formula, but I'll get to that in a bit.
H.A. Rey and his wife Margret were Jews living in France just prior to the Nazi invasion. One of the few possessions they took with them as they slipped out of Paris and into Portugal and eventually New York was the manuscript for the first George book, which was originally published in 1940.
And the book is full of scenes that would be humorous in that year, and even still are, but are anachronistic in our current world. First off, George is basically poached from the jungle and brought back to be featured in a zoo. Though my kids laugh at that, and don't find that he's in a zoo controversial at all, since the only animals they ever see are there. They must assume that's how all the animals get there. Kidnapping. Once George sets sail for the US and faces the peril of nearly drowning after falling off the ship, he relaxes with a "good pipe". Most parents would frown upon a depiction of a character smoking, but it points to how much George wants to be an adult. Later, he makes a false call to the fire department who arrive and place him under arrest. Then he goes to prison. Not a nice modern jail, but the one from Les Miserables. He escapes, then during his escape he becomes fascinated by balloons and floats away after he grabs them, which requires saving by the man with the yellow hat. George is rewarded by finally getting his place at the zoo, which he appears happy about. It's all pretty quaint, and amusing.
Those anachronisms I don't find controversial. It is the central element of the plot in nearly every book that doesn't fit in today's context. George is supposed to represent the natural curiosity and energy that all small children have, and how it often can get them into trouble during an adventure he undertakes by himself outside the man's apartment (or house). There's always a scene where George realizes he's made a big mistake, cries and then is rescued by the man with the yellow hat. This book is an exception to the others in the series because George does not leave the apartment through his own power, since he's arrested first and taken away. The only thing that resembles the other books is scene where he has to be rescued from the balloons. The controversy arises in the subsequent books. There are large swathes in the middle of the story where the man with yellow hat disappears, which I assume to represent the authority parent leaving for work, and where George is left unsupervised. It is often a common device used in children's books where the main character appears without adults for a period of time. Yet most parents wouldn't even think of letting even there school aged children alone for any period of time. Our kids are probably the most watched generation ever. I was a latch key kid, and my single parent mother would let me be home for several hours by myself after school. My neighborhood was idyllic, I had friends up and down the street and I would play sports with them and their older brothers. I turned out OK, but you would be hard pressed to find a parent who would allow this today. Parents themselves hardly even go outside in my neighborhood. Recently, I ran around the street we live with my kids and I saw some of the other kids in the neighborhood peeking out of their doors trying to figure out what we were doing. Yet in George, and in most children's books the bulk of their adventures are undertaken without parental supervision. I know, because I am guilty of that in my books as well. Perhaps its not an anachronism more than it is irony.
The later books, the ones written by contract writers for the publishing company after the Reys had passed on, also follow this "child left alone" narrative, but the man with yellow hat is less scarce. He will accompany George on an adventure to a toy store, or will leave him alone, but with most of the action taking place within house and out of the dangers of the outside world. I'm sure some parents were horrified by the tribulations George goes through in some of the earlier books and in the later ones the trouble is more friendly. In some way, the cultural phenomenon of Curious George may have contributed to parents being less likely to live their appropriately aged kids alone, though the line of that appropriateness may just have shifted over the years, for fear that they might not survive it. And we sometimes instill this in our kids. We help them to accomplish a simple task whether they need it or not. We tell them they can't be out of our sight at any time. Play areas all have clearly defined boundaries. We're more aware of the various dangers that can happen in the city because communication of some tragic event involving a child is that much more immediate. Dangers have always been there.
Yet, all the stories are about those children or their surrogates like Curious George, and the dangers our children can become self-fulfilling. Ultimately, George is a story of child abduction when you really think about it.
