Curious George Takes a Job

Curious George Takes a Job is a children's book written and illustrated by Margaret Rey and H. A. Rey and published by Houghton Mifflin in 1947. It is the second of the Curious George books and tells the story of George taking a job as a window washer.

Curious George Takes a Job
First edition
AuthorH. A. Rey
Margret Rey
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SeriesCurious George
GenreChildren's literature
PublisherHoughton Mifflin
Publication date
1947
Media typePrint
Preceded byCurious George 
Followed byCurious George Rides a Bike 

Plot

The book picks up where the first book ends. George is living in the zoo, until he gets a key from a zookeeper and escapes his cage. In the city, George enters a restaurant where he is caught eating a pot of spaghetti and forced by the cook to wash the dishes, but he does a splendid job. As a reward, the cook takes him to a friend (who is an elevator man), who gives him a job as a window washer at a tall apartment building. The elevator man warns George that he must not get too curious or he may get into trouble. While doing his job, George first saw a little boy with his mother in a kitchen. The boy was crying because he refuses to eat his spinach as he does not like it (for the first room). Then, a man was taking a nap (for the second room). When George listened to the funny snoring noise (made by the sleeping man), he was sorry that the man was not his real friend (The Man with the Yellow Hat). George, one by one, successfully worked on all the windows, as they all seem to be perfectly clean. But as for the last window in the one building, George (before he could work on the last one) discovers a room being painted. George then thinks painting is better than washing windows. So instead of working on the last window, he (thinking it would be okay to paint) decided to climb inside and paint the room where the painters were in. At first he thought it would be okay.

So (after he thinks the painters might paint the whole room into an African jungle; with the furniture being made into African animals) he sneaks in and gives it a jungle theme (even painting the furniture covers as animals) during the painters' break for lunch. Upon their return from lunch an hour later, the painters look inside and the room has changed into a jungle (including a giraffe, two leopards, and a zebra). An apartment woman owner of the room (as a customer for the painters) also shows up and gasps about "her lovely room". She did not find her room funny. George turned her room into a jungle. But it was not what the woman ordered nor wanted for her room. George had to do it out of no where. Finally, the painters, the elevator man (who the painters told about what George did to the woman's room which was making it into a jungle), and the apartment woman owner (who also told the elevator man) chase George down the fire escape.

George reaches (hanging from the bars) at the end of the fire escape. The others had not caught up with him yet and this was George’s chance. The others could not jump but George could just jump down and escape. In a moment, he thought he would be safe. Unfortunately, when George jumps down from the bars at end of the fire escape, he makes a hard landing blow on the stone-like pavement below, having mistaken it as being the soft grass from the jungle, only it was actually hard as stone. As a result, when George jumped down, the fall broke his leg, and an ambulance arrived to take him to the hospital. The woman of the apartment reported the incident and told everyone how George got what he deserved. He had what he deserved which was making her apartment room into a jungle indeed. The elevator man adds that he knew George would get into trouble if he was curious (as he says to everyone, "I told him he would get into trouble!"). He was too curious.

As a result, George ends up in the hospital. He is then seen unhappily laying in the hospital bed with his leg high up in a plaster cast. It had all started out so nicely! If only he had not been so curious he would have had a lot of fun, but now it was too late.

The story of him experiencing the hospital (after falling down and breaking his leg) makes it to the local newspaper where The Man with the Yellow Hat reads it and makes a beeline to the hospital to claim him. During that time, George gets out of his bed (his leg having healed) and tampers with a bottle of ether, which knocks him out. The Man and the nurse both find him this way and put him in a cold shower to wake him up, then George is taken to a movie studio to record a movie about his life, which he and all of his friends (whom he met during the story) are seen in a theater watching at the end of the book.

Reception

The book has received reviews from publications including School Library Journal,[1] Kirkus Reviews,[2] The New Yorker,[3] and New York Herald Tribune.[4]

gollark: There is nothing stopping them from revealing personal information if they have it (Discord won't randomly provide it) except maybe being banned afterward.
gollark: It's an Electron app. It's basically glorified Chrome.
gollark: That depends how they're doing it, but generally it would be hard to since they control the software on said computer.
gollark: GPUs are a lot faster than CPUs for parallel tasks if you can actually make your thing run on them.
gollark: Speak thine question, then.

References
  1. Mcelmeel, Sharron (April 1983). "Curious George takes a job". School Library Journal. 29 (1): 46.
  2. "Curious George Takes a Job". Kirkus Reviews. June 15, 1947. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
  3. Galchen, Rivka (June 3, 2019). "The Unexpected Profundity of Curious George". The New Yorker. Retrieved April 14, 2020.
  4. Curious George takes a job. OCLC 16318301.
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