JasonKoivu

What a twist! There George was, messing about in the house and then BAM he's off into Nope, sorry, you'll just have to read it!.

Holy jesus does that monkey get into trouble! And not only in stories, but real life too! One day I was visiting my aunt and her two dogs, a house-guarding German Shepherd with a hell of a bark and a perpetually annoyed poodle. Well, when I wasn't looking George slipped away into the other room and I guess he did something to get on the poodle's nerves, because the heartless beast tore the brim off that poor monkey's hat and then gutted him. My aunt had to do emergency surgery secretively and fast, because if I'd seen that carnage I would've lost my shit. Thanks to her, Curious George survived and went on to have many adventures with me, like the time we climbed a mountain and the only thing in my tiny backpack was George. But that scar stayed with him the rest of his life and to this day I have a righteous prejudice against goddamn poodles!




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Review With My 4-Year-Old Niece Emma

Emma was acting like a crazy little monkey herself and I needed to calm her stat, so I went with the tested and true "story time!" technique, speed-reading through the first couple pages of Curious George Gets a Medal to get her attention. Worked like a charm. Always does.

In this episode of George's life, that curious monkey floods the man with the big yellow hat's apartment with soap suds and water, then scours the countryside looking for a beast of burden to pull a water pump back to the city in order to clean up the mess. He ends up f'ing sh!t up at a museum, and just when it looks like the jig is up, he's rescued by that yellow-hatted poacher. The story climaxes with a zany, unexpected twist.

Personally, I thought this was a heck of a good read. Emma, not so much...

Me: "Did you like this one?"
Emma: "No."
Me: "Why not?"
Emma: "It was boring."
Me: "What about that part where George fills up the house with bubbles?"
Emma: "Oh yeah. That part was funny!"
Me: "But you didn't like the book?"
Emma: "No."

Even though my co-reader would disagree, I'm keeping the rating at 5 stars, because frankly I think Emma's talking out of her butt on this one.