I wish we could return to a simpler time in children literature. It seems that every book nowadays has to be screened over and over to make sure we don't expose our young ones to something that might influence them and the result, to me, is a bland pablum of happy books with nothing to really laugh at. If we look at the older books we get the menage of mischievous characters dealing with exotic situations that are funny and interesting to children because they are not perfect and politically correct.
One of their favorites is Curious George, a perennial classic. But Curious George is n
ot the innocent storybook character that he would appear to be. Some may think that George is simply a curious little monkey, but did you realize that George is a pawn of Philip Morris? GASP. Yes, in the original classic, George displays his loyalties on his first day in the Man with the Yellow Hat's home. He has dinner and then he smokes a pipe, complete with illustrations to show my impressionable children exactly what transpired, just in case they weren't listening closely enough. But, George, in spite of your foibles, I still love you. I will still read your many adventures to my children who manage to overlook your follies. But maybe we should consider a new book, Curious George and the nicorette patch.
ot the innocent storybook character that he would appear to be. Some may think that George is simply a curious little monkey, but did you realize that George is a pawn of Philip Morris? GASP. Yes, in the original classic, George displays his loyalties on his first day in the Man with the Yellow Hat's home. He has dinner and then he smokes a pipe, complete with illustrations to show my impressionable children exactly what transpired, just in case they weren't listening closely enough. But, George, in spite of your foibles, I still love you. I will still read your many adventures to my children who manage to overlook your follies. But maybe we should consider a new book, Curious George and the nicorette patch.Then we have the Man with the Yellow Hat. Dear Man, you're not exactly being an environmentally friendly partner with the Earth. After all, you removed a little monkey from his home with no thought of the consequence. Perhaps George was an endangered species, or maybe he had a family he left behind. Surely he would have been better off in his home territory. For all we know, he never would have gotten into so much trouble had he stayed at home. In the jungle he would have had normal monkey diversions. Hanging from tree limbs, and swinging from vines would have occupied his time as opposed to eating puzzle pieces, and soaring over the city on the tail of a kite, although then we would never have had his adventures to entertain our children.
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