by Moe Zilla

Created on: January 28, 2009

Curious George played his way through seven books written by H. A. Rey and his wife Margaret. But the franchise became so popular that the monkey outlived his authors!He appeared in a series of TV cartoons, and the cartoons started becoming books in the 1980s. By 1993, there had been 24 of these book adaptations released. One of the most interesting is "Curious George Goes to the Beach.

The title page argues the book was written "in the style of H. A. Rey" - but could they recreate the magic of the original stories? The book opens slowly, rambling into its premise, that the monkey is visiting the beach with the Man with the Yellow Hat. There's no tension in the story, but it's fun to see pictures of the happy monkey playing. He catches a beach ball, makes a castle, and makes friends with an orange crab.

George eventually slips up a tall platform to the seat of the beach's lifeguard. The lifeguard shouts back that it's no place for a monkey. "George thought it was a fine place for a monkey," the author writes affectionately, "but he did not want to cause trouble. So he climbed down."

And there's a funny sequence of tiny pictures showing George sneaking a cracker from a picnic basket. He peeks into the basket for cheese, but when he turns around, the cracker is gone. And when he peeks back into the basket for cheese, his cracker disappears! The last drawings show the monkey looking exasperated - and then crouching behind the picnic basket to keep an eye on his cracker.

I like how the story progresses gradually, until the monkey wanders into bigger troubles. The crackers were snatched by a hungry sea gull. "What fun to feed a sea gull!" George thinks. Soon he's feeding a whole flock with the basket - until the basket is carried away by the tide. But this book has a gentler tone than the original Curious George books. No one faces danger, and no one gets in trouble. George paddles out to save the basket - using a float that he borrowed from the lifeguard. The lifeguard congratulates George on his rescue - and he's even inspired a young girl named Betsy to swim in the ocean. About the only problem with George's antics is he's ruined a perfectly good lunch - he's fed all of the food to the sea gulls!

Children will be glad to see the funny monkey in another book - but this book seems to limp along without any real mischief. George's dilemma is resolve instantly, when he's invited to another picnic by Betsy's mother. Soon George is feasting on cookies and watermeleon with his new friends and the Man with the Yellow Hat. They've all joined together for another standard-issue happy ending.

But if you look closely at the last picture, you'll see George is still sneaking food to the sea gulls...

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