No, not one of my relatives you’ve never met. (Well, I’m sure out there somewhere I have a relative who’s 70, but that’s not the point.)
It’s everyone’s favourite inquisitive little monkey, Curious George!
I recently received two hardcover, special edition books honouring this big birthday:
Curious George Storybook Collection (Eight stories with activities and more than 100 stickers) It has neat craft ideas to go with the different stories, and the art is based on the PBS Kids television show.
The Complete Adventures of Curious George, with seven original classics, and a photo album of the authors (Margret and H.A. Rey). I particularly love all the non-fiction additions, which allow the kids (and parents) to learn more about the story of George, whom some of us have loved for years.
I also love the “Complete Adventures” book because it comes with over an hour of storytelling on two CD’s. At four years old, Frannie loves the stories, but is a little young for the CD’s, as they don’t have any sort of indicator for when to turn the page, and she doesn’t read well enough to follow it herself. I am a huge fan of books with CD’s. In my class, the favourite centre in our daily Reading Workshop rotation is always the listening centre. However, usually it requires putting a tape in the old tape recorder and putting on the brown headphones (you know, the same ones you used as a kid.) Now, though, many books are available on CD as well. Frannie loves to listen to her books in bed during quiet time (our enforced ‘stay-in-your-room-while-Maggie-naps’ time) and before going to sleep.
And guess what? The little guy also stars in “Curious George Christmas Carols”, which is another book and CD combo made up of ten favourite Christmas tunes like Deck the Halls and Silent Night. Warning: there’s no “silent night” when your daughter thinks firing up the CD player at 2 a.m. is a good idea, but hey. We’re encouraging reading.
Happy Birthday Curious George!!!!