by H. A. Rey
Where was the bunny?
It could not get out of the garden.
It could not get up the wall the way George could.
It could not fly away.
It had to be here—but it was not.
The bunny was gone, and all the fun was gone too.
George sat down.
He had been a bad little monkey.
Why was he so curious?
Why did he let the bunny go?
Now he could not put it back into the bunny house where it could be with Mother Bunny.
Mother Bunny—George looked up.
Why, that was it!
Mother Bunny could help him!
Bad monkey
George got up.
He had to have some string.
Maybe there was some in the garden.
Yes, there was a string and a good one too.
George took the string and went back to the bunny house.
Mother Bunny was at the door.
George let her out and put the string on her.
And Mother Bunny knew what to do.
Away she went with her head down and her ears up.
All George could do was hold the string and run after her.
And then Mother Bunny sat down.
She saw something, and George saw it too.
Something white that looked like a tail, like the tail of the baby bunny.
And that is what it was!
But where was the rest of the bunny?
It was down in a hole.
A bunny likes to dig a hole and then go down and live in it.
But this bunny was too little to live in a hole.
It should live in a bunny house.
So George got hold of the little white tail and pulled the baby bunny out.
Then they all ran back to the bunny house.
George did not have to put a string on the baby bunny.
It ran after its mother all the way home.
George took the string off Mother Bunny and helped them back into the house.
Then Mother Bunny and all the little ones lay down to sleep.
George looked at them.
It was good to see the baby bunny back where it should be.
And now George would go back to where he should be.
When he came to the wall, he could see something funny in back of it.
George got up on the wall to find out what it was.
He saw a long string on a long stick.
A fat man had the long stick in his hand.
What could the man do with a stick that long?
George was curious.
The fat man was on his way to the lake, and soon George was on his way to the lake too.
The man took a hook out of his box, put it on a string and then put something on the hook.
Then the man let the string down into the water and waited.
Now George knew!
The string on the stick was to fish with.
When the man pulled the string out of the water, there was a big fish on the hook.
George saw the man pull one fish after another out of the lake, till he had all the fish he wanted.
What fun it must be to fish!
George wanted to fish too.
He had his string.
All he needed was a stick, and he knew where to get that.
George ran home as fast as he could.
In the kitchen he took the mop off the kitchen wall.
The mop would make a good stick.
Now George had the string and the stick.
He was all set to fish.
Or was he?
Not yet.
George had to have a hook and on the hook something that fish like to eat.
Fish would like cake, and George knew where to find some.
But where could he get a hook?
Why—there was a hook for the mop on the kitchen wall!
It would have to come out.
With the hook on the string and the string on the stick and the cake in the box in his hand, George went back to the lake.
George sat down, put some cake on the hook, and let the line down into the water.
Now he had to wait, just as the man had waited.
George was curious.
The fish were curious too.
All kinds of fish came to look at the line, big fish and little fish, fat fish and thin fish, red fish and yellow fish and blue fish.
One of them was near the hook.
The cake was just what he wanted.
George sat and waited.
Then the line shook.
There must be a fish on the hook.
George pulled the line up.
The cake was gone, but no fish was on the hook.
Too bad!
George put more cake on the hook.
Maybe this time he would get a fish.
But no!
The fish just took the cake off the hook and went away.
Well, if George could not get the fish, the fish would not get the cake.
George would eat it.
He liked cake too.
He would find another way to get a fish.
George looked into the water.
That big red one there with the long tail!
It was so near, maybe he could get it with his hands.
George got down as low as he could, and put out his hand.
SPLASH!
Into the lake he went!
The water was cold and wet and George was cold and wet too.
This was no fun at all.
When he came out of the water, Bill was there with his kite.
"My, you are wet!" Bill said.
"I saw you fall in, so I came to help you get out.
Too bad you did not get a fish!
But it is good the fish did not get you."
"Now I can show you how high my kite can fly," Bill went on.
Bill put his bike up near a tree and then they ran off.
There was a lot of wind that day, and that was just what they needed.
The wind took the kite up fast.
George was too little to hold it in this wind.
A kite that big could fly away with him.
So Bill had to hold it.
George saw the kite go up and up and up.
What fun it was to fly a kite!
They let the kite fly for a long time till Bill said,
"I will get the kite down now.
I must go home and you should too."
But when Bill pulled the string in, the kite got into the top of a high tree.
Bill could not get it down.
"Oh, my fine new kite!
I can not let go of it.
I must have it back," Bill said.
"But the tree is too high for me."
But no tree was too high for George.
He went up to the top in no time.
Then, little by little, he got the string out of the tree.
Down he came with the kite and gave it back to Bill.
"Thank you, George, thanks a lot," Bill said. "I am so happy to have the kite back.
Now you may have a ride home on my bike.
I will run back to the lake and get it.
You wait here for me with the kite, but do not let it fly away."
George looked at the kite.
Then he took the string in his hand.
He knew he could not fly the kite in this wind, but maybe he could let it go up just a little bit.
George was curious.
He let the string go a little, and then a little more, and then a little more, and then a little more.
When Bill came back, there was no kite and there was no George.
"George!" he called.
"Where are you?"
Then he looked up.
There they were, way up in the sky!
Bill had to get help fast.
He would go to the man with the yellow hat.
The man would know what to do.
"George is not here," said the man with the yellow hat when Bill came.
"Have you seen him?"
"George and my kite are up in the sky near the lake," Bill shouted.
"I came to..."
But the man did not wait to hear any more.
He ran to his car and jumped in.
"I will get him back," he said.
"I must get George back."
All this time the wind took the kite up and George with it.
It was fun to fly about in the sky.
But when George looked down, the fun was gone.
He was up so high that all the big houses looked as little as bunny houses.
George did not like it a bit.
He wanted to get down, but how?
Not even a monkey can jump from the sky.
George was scared.
What if he never got back?
Maybe he would fly on and on and on.
Oh, he would never, never be so curious again, if just this one time he could find a way to get home.
Hummmmm—hummmmm.
What was that?
George could hear something, and then he saw something fly in the sky just like a kite.
It was a helicopter, and in the helicopter, hurrah, was the man with the yellow hat!
Down from the helicopter came a long line.
George got hold of it, and the man with the yellow hat pulled him up.
George held on to the kite, for he had to give it back to Bill.
"I am so happy to have you back, George," said the man with the yellow hat.
"I was scared, and you must have been scared too.
I know you will not want to fly a kite again for a long, long time.
You must give it back to Bill when we get home."
"Hurrah!" Bill shouted when George came to give him the kite.
"George is back, and my kite is back too!"
And then Bill took George by the hand and went with him into the little garden,
and from the little garden into the big garden, where the bunny house was.
"Here is one of my baby bunnies," Bill said.
"Take it, it is for you!"
A baby bunny for George!
George took it in his hands and held it way up.
It was HIS bunny now.
He could take it home with him.
And that is
what he
did.
Curious George
Learns the Alphabet
This is George.
He lived with his friend, the man with the yellow hat. He was a good little monkey, but he was always curious.
This morning George was looking at some of his friend's books. They were full of little black marks and dots and lines, and George was curious: what could one do with them?
The man with the yellow hat came just in time.
"You don't tear a book apart to find out what's in it," he said. "You READ it, George. Books are full of stories. Stories are made of words, and words are made of letters. If you want to read a story you first have to know the letters of the alphabet. Let me show you."
The man took a big pad and began to draw. George was curious.
"This is an A," the man said. "The A is the first letter of the alphabet."
A
Now we add four feet and a long tail—
and the A becomes an ALLIGATOR
with his mouth wide open.
The word ALLIGATOR starts with an A.
This is a big A. There is also a small a.
All letters come in big and in small.
This is a small a
It looks like a piece of an apple.
George knew alligators and apples.
You could eat apples. Alligators could
eat you if you didn't watch out.
This is a big B
The big B looks like a BIRD if we put feet on it and
a tail and a BILL. The word BIRD begins with a B.
BIRDS come in all colors. This BIRD is BLUE.
George loved to watch BIRDS.
This is a small b
It could be a bee.
This bee is busy buzzing around a blossom.
The bee's body has black and yellow stripes.
George kept away from bees.
They might sting, and that would be bad.
This is a big C
We will make it into a CRAB—
a big CRAB,
with a shell, and feet, and two CLAWS.
This is a small c
The small c is like the big C, only smaller,
so it becomes a small crab. It's cute.
Crabs live in the ocean.
They can swim or run sidewise and backwards.
Crabs can be funny, but they can also pinch you.
"You now have three
letters, George," the man said,
"A and B and C. With these three letters
you can make a WORD, the first word
you can read yourself. The word is
C A B
c a b
You know what a cab is. I once took you
for a ride in a cab, remember? And now
let's draw the next letter."
The big D
could be a DINOSAUR.
There are no live DINOSAURS TODAY,
they have DIED out.
Those you see in museums are DUMMIES.
George had seen DINOSAURS in a museum once.
The small d
looks like a dromedary.
A dromedary is a camel with one hump.
Riding on a dromedary can make you dizzy because
it goes up and down—up and down—up and down.
desert
The big E
is an ELEPHANT.
He is eating his EVENING meal: EGGPLANTS.
George loved ELEPHANTS.
The small e
could be the ear of a man,
or the ear of a monkey.
People's ears and monkeys' ears
look very much alike.
The big F
is a FIREMAN FIGHTING a FIRE.
Never FOOL the FIRE DEPARTMENT,
or you go to jail, and that's no FUN.
The small f
is a flower.
George's friend was fond of flowers.
George preferred food.
The big G
is a GOOSE.
GOOSE starts with a G, like GEORGE
The small g
is a goldfish.
He is in a glass bowl and looks gay.
DAD ED
BAD
bag cage
bed feed
"Now you know seven letters, George," said the man, "A, B, C, D, E, F, G. With these letters we can already make quite a few words. I have written some of them down: you read them while I get you your lunch."
"It seems the only word you can read is BAD," said the man when he came back. "I think we had enough for one morning. I'll feed you now and then you take your nap. After your nap we'll go on with our letters."
The big H
is a HOUSE.
It stands on a HILL behind a HEDGE.
George's HOME used to be the jungle.
Now he lives in a HOUSE.
The small h
is a horse.
He is happy because he has heaps of hay.
George had his own horse—a hobby horse.
The big I
is just a long line
going straight down. It does
not look like much. It could be an
ICICLE
BRRR!
The small i is a line with a dot on top.
It could be an iguana.
An iguana is a sort of lizard.
Iguanas don't like ice. They like the warm sunshine.
So does George.
The big J
is a JAGUAR.
JAGUARS live in th
e JUNGLE.
George knew JAGUARS.
He had lived in the JUNGLE once.
The small j
is a jack-in-the-box.
George had a jack-in-the-box as a toy.
He just loved to make it jump.
The big K
is a big KANGAROO called KATY.
The small k
is a small kangaroo.
He is Katy's kid.
The big L
is a LION.
He is LUCKY. He is going to have
LEG of LAMB for LUNCH, and he LOVES it.
The small l
is a lean lady.
She is strolling along a lake licking a lollipop.
George liked lollipops.
The big M
is a MAILMAN.
His name is MISTER MILLER. He brings a letter.
Maybe it's for ME, thinks George.
The small m
is a mouse.
He is munching mints.
"And do you know what else it is?" said the man to George: "M is the thirteenth letter of the A B C. The whole alphabet has only
26 letters, so thirteen is just half of it. You can make lots of words with these letters. Why don't you try? Here's a pad and pencil."
George started to think of words, and then he wrote them down. It was fun to make words out of letters.
"Let me see," said the man. "Ball – Milk – Cake – Ham – Jam – Egg – Lime – Feed – Kid – that's very good.
But what on earth is a Dalg or a Glidj or a Blimlimlim? There are no such things. Just ANY letters do not make words, George.
Well, let's look at some new letters now."
The big N
is a NAPKIN
standing on a dinner plate. It looks NEAT.
George had seen NAPKINS folded that way
in the restaurant when he was a dishwasher.
