Curious George

It's a classic but what a terrible book! George gets captured by a poacher to be sold to a zoo, and then becomes “friend” to his kidnapper. He gets put to jail by firefighters and almost died in the city, before being “saved” by his kidnapper-friend and put to the zoo. Horrible.

One of those “classic” books that would no doubt fail to find a publisher today, not only for its cultural insensitivity, but for the naughty behaviours kids would pick up from it (calling 911 needlessly, smoking a pipe, breaking out of jail, stealing balloons, etc). Still, you can definitely see why kids respond to it so well.

I just loved Curious George books as an early reader. They always made me so happy!