I loved Curious George books as a kid, especially the one where he eats a puzzle piece. Little did I know that George started out as Fifi, and his creators, Margret and H. A. Rey, were German Jews living in France, who fled by bicycle to escape the invading Nazi army.
Louise Borden researched the story for a book, and the NYT explains almost enough of it to make buying the book unnecessary. It's the damn Catch 22 of publicity, I guess.
Almost, but not quite? Buy The Journey That Saved Curious George: The True Wartime Escape of Margret and H. A. Rey at Amazon.
How Curious George Escaped the Nazis [nyt]
The book I was thinking of: Curious George Goes To The Hospital [amazon]
Did someone forget to close the tags?
[d'oh, those italics rolled over that page faster'n nazis invading france. as is my national custom, i will thank you and promptly forget the canadian role in getting rid of them. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! -ed.]
Greg, as long as you don't bomb me while I'm on a training mission, all is good.
[can't promise anything, sorry. oops, can't say that, either. -ed.]
I had the rare opportunity to meet Margret Rey, not her husband. She was in Canada to meet with an animation company which I represented at the time. She was the LEAST child friendly woman I have ever met actually.
The words bitter, and old and shrew were used in the context of her name, if I recall, but that was a long time ago (not really).
[Come on, they were HER monkeys. I bet there's a whole book to be written about husband-wife teams where the husband gets sole credit, at least initially. -ed.]
But Uma does bring up an interesting point about some children's book author's that DON'T. LIKE. KIDS.
Dr. Seuss was the same way...not much tolerance for the little buggers...but he sure could crank out the kiddie books...
What's that all about?
[And don't forget Richard Scarry, who may not have hated kids, but he was a total bum. -ed.]