Tom, please–Curious George is a “mischievous” monkey, not a “mischevious” one. The word derives from “mischief”; and the pronunciation “miss-chee’-vee-ous” is incorrect.

Do you know of any attempt to introduce German audiences to Curious George?

I am a 40-year old German living in Cambridge since 1995. During my childhood I never heard of C.G. nor has any of my peers. I only learned of C.G. through my American husband who introduced ALL books to our small children. Of course they love them and so do I.

Now that I know through your show of the authors origins, I find it even more important that these literary childhood treasures are publicized in Germany. Any thoughts?

wow pretty cool,as growing up reading Curious George this to me is a interesting topic,and cool history behind the book.

thanks, tom and guest for this topic

Curious George and his world are a part of our lives every day, at night with the books and in the mornings with the PBS cartoon. Both of our children ages 4 and 8 love the stories. The stories seem to have an amazing calming affect on them. We are huge fans!

Great story of escape. Curious George – great stories, but let’s be fair, the pictures are commercial, unimaginative, cartoon-like. Not great artwork, not even close.

Thank you so much for this story. I remember watching the slide-show with accompanying audio-tape of Curious George during story time in elementary school in Texas during the early 90′s. Now, as a graduate student in literature, it is very meaningful to me to learn “the story behind the story.”

As a child, I met Mr. Rey in the lobby at the publisher (boston) when my father was presenting one of his concepts for publication. What a surprise to be reminded of this and here more about the Rey’s journey. I remember him as seemingly preoccupied and “exotic” to me for some reason. No yellow hat though.

Regarding the Rey’s astronomy book: I received it as a child, in the 60s, I think. It’s called “The Stars: A New Way to See Them”. It’s terrific! Still in print too. I give copies to new arrivals to the planet, among friends and family. I love the way the connecting lines for the constellations are redrawn in order to make more sense of the classical figures. Also the example of the Chaldean shepherd!
– Jake in Cambridge

Curious George was in fact translated into German, but they changed his name to Coco:

Curious George (1941) (Dt. Erstausg. 1966 u.d.T. Coco, der neugierige Affe)
Curious George Takes a Job (1947)
Curious George Rides a Bike (1952) (dt. 1956: Coco fährt Rad)
Curious George Gets a Medal (1957)
Curious George Flies a Kite (1958)
Curious George Learns the Alphabet (1963)
Curious George Goes to the Hospital (1966) (dt. 1998: Coco kommt ins Krankenhaus)

I am going after those translations into German. Watch out my beloved independent booksellers (or Amazon.com). I love children’s books in translation. For one thing, I figure people learn their own language, primary language, in part from children’s literature — not from Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway or the equivalent. (Don’t know what’s going on with worldreader.org, co-founded by Risher’s son, see post above, and their Kindles for Ghana, showing Curious George to be on top — in English?) And for another thing, the care with which each word is lodged (and illustrated) in the best children’s literature makes for easy absorption by someone my age (old), whereas simply reading children’s books for the information or the arc of the story would be kind of a yawn. Been there, done that.

Hi, this is Chris again. I wrote the warning posted at 12:12 p.m.

I SHOULD have said what I said about the FIRST posting. It is the ONLY one that I tried. I did NOT want to click on the second link, having been trapped by the first one. I ASSUME they were both posted by the same person; tho, there is the theoretical possibility that the second one is from a different person and that it might be safe. I would advise NOT trying the second link, either!!!

BEWARE!!!

Thank you for this story today. I still my first staffed animal, my Curious George monkey, which sits in my closet with the ear-to-ear grin. I cannot wait to download the podcast of this episode soon!

Haven’t you ever heard of the tomato/tomahto debate? I have heard mischievious enough to put mischievous/mischievious into a similar standoff. Having heard them both for a long time, I would say that mischievious is an intensified form of mischievous or something like that. A mischievous child might be mainly naughty. A mischievious child (or monkey) would conduct the mischief with a certain flare. The intent driving the behavior might be more curiosity than animosity, for instance. The objective would be the display of personality, the playing out of selfhood, yielding more a matter of style than of out-and-out disruption. You might say that curious George put “mischievious” on the map (if not right into the dictionary).

Great programme about two amazing people. I first came across H A Rey when studying astronomy; his “The Stars and How To See Them” is the finest introduction to how to identify the constellations, as well as being the only book I’ve read which describes sidereal time in a way that even a child can understand.

Re. comment about Mr. Ashbrook: I don’t really care about his mispronunciation; but one of his mannerisms which I really can’t stand (and was most noticeable in today’s programme) is his habit of interjecting “uh huh!”s and miscellaneous grunts and snorts when his guests are speaking! Please oh please stop it!

Thank you!

- Wil

Me too! Me too! I remember searching for the flashes of YELLOW amid piles of books on the nursery school table. I always wanted more Curious George stories. My mother said I WAS a Curious George. That was 1968.

I can hardly believe how many people wrote, not to applaud the intriguing, unknown and well-told story about the Reys and Curious George, but to “rag” on Tom Ashbrook about his pronunciation of mischievous/mischievious. Or perhaps some listeners just wanted to make mischief. Obviously they understand its meaning! Here’s an explanation that turned up when I googled “both” words:
“A pronunciation \mis-ˈchē-vē-əs\ and a consequent spelling mischievious are of long standing: evidence for the spelling goes back to the 16th century. Our pronunciation files contain modern attestations ranging from dialect speakers to Herbert Hoover. But both the pronunciation and the spelling are still considered nonstandard.”