by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 18, 2009   Last Updated: August 10, 2009

H.A. Rey was 60 years old when he released "Curious George Flies a Kite" with his wife Margaret. But their fifth book was different, because it was written "for beginning readers" (according to a tag on the cover). It uses easier words to help children who are learning to read. This means the story loses some energy, even if it's still the same old curious monkey.

The "beginning reader" format means that every sentence is simple and deliberate. Instead of saying "Don't be too curious," the man in the yellow hat warns "Do not be too curious." And the first page makes a point of repeating many of the same words. ("George is a little monkey, and all monkeys are curious. But no monkey is as curious as George. That is why his name is Curious George...") It's worth remembering that the story would get even simpler in George's next book - "Curious George Learns the Alphabet."

The monkey is still as playful as ever. In this book, George plays with a rubber ball, which rolls into another room. The monkey smiles at the view from its window, where there's "a big house in a little garden and a little house in a big garden." But wait - who could live in such a tiny house? George was curious, and soon he's climbing the garden wall to find out.

I love the way these books wander slowly towards trouble - and H.A. Rey drew some wonderful illustrations for the book. The little house is a hutch filled with white bunnies, and they smile as the monkey pays them a visit. George plays hide-and-go-seek with a baby bunny, and there's a great series of drawings as he searches for it among the trees. But he can't find the bunny, and Rey draws a sad face on George. But the next page shows the clever monkey's solution. He's tied a string to the mother bunny, and she leads the way to a hole in the tree where her baby was hiding!

And George is off to entirely different adventures before the book ends. He tries fishing off the end of a dock - after finding a mop to use as the rod, and some cake to use as bait. Rey draws a wonderful picture of the fish in the lake smiling as the cake appears in the water, but it ends up with George eating the cake himself - and then falling in the water. And by the end of the book, he's flying a kite with his friend Bill - the paperboy wearing the red-and-white striped shirt in "Curious George Rides a Bike."

But when Bill returns with his bike, "there was no kite and there was no George." Because the wind has lifted the monkey off into the sky , and off to one more wild adventure. It's a classic "Curious George" moment, and though he's carried far up into the sky, it all winds up with a happy ending. There's a spectacular rescue in the sky by the man with the yellow hat, who's flying a helicopter.

And at the end of the book, George is given a pet bunny of his very own.

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