Before Curious George, H.A. Rey's first book was about a giraffe - but the famous monkey makes a special appearance in the book! "Cecily G. and the Nine Monkey" tells the story of a giraffe whose friends have all been taken to a zoo. She turns to the nine monkeys for companionship - and in this book, Curious George even talks!
"We must pack up at once and go on a journey to find a new home," George says on the book's second page. Some woodcutters have eliminated the forest where he lives with eight other monkeys - including his Mother Pamplemoose. The giraffe is quite a character visually, and she straddles a gorge with her orange-spotted legs so the monkeys can get across. "Thank you, dear Giraffe," says Curious George, "and please put your head down a little so that we can talk to you without shouting. That's better! What is your name and why are you sad?"
It's strange to see this early incarnation of the character who'd become so famous later. In this book, George is just one of the book's nine monkeys. (There's his Mother Pamplemoose and Baby Jinny, plus "James who was good, Johnny who was brave, Arthur who was kind, David who was strong" - and a pair of twins named Punch and Judy.) But in this book, George's personality is entirely different. Besides talking, he's also unusually polite when addressing the giraffe. "Please be so kind as to stretch your neck so I can tie your head to the top of that palm tree over there."
H.A. Rey was always a talented children's illustrator, and he uses the same style for this book - bright watercolors showing simple drawings of cheerful, smiling animals. (Cecily G's expression is exactly the same as the one H.A. Rey later drew on Curious George.) He creates funny pictures of the monkeys using their giraffe friend like a see-saw, a harp, or even a sailboat. (At one point, they even hang her skin on a clothesline to dry). And in the book's climax, the monkeys use the giraffe as a ladder while they spray water into a burning house.
But this book lacks some of the gentle chaos that made Rey's later books so fun. It's disappointing that the only hint of George's personality is when they're jumping off the giraffe's neck while holding umbrellas. (It's George who ultimately tilts his umbrella and then plummets to the ground, destroying it.) But at least it suggests some of the monkey's later spectacular sky-bound misadventures with balloons and kites, and in his first published appearance, the monkey is already reacting endearingly to his unexpected troubles. "When he looked at his broken umbrella, he sat down on the ground to cry...
"Poor George!"