Curious George Rides a Bike by H.A. Rey

Curious George Rides a Bike by H.A. Rey

Rating: 2 stars

I'm all for old books, whether they are deemed classics or not.  But please don't check this book out.  If you do, your child will learn to:

1.  Play by herself in the front yard, near the street.

2.  Do "tricks" on a bike, such as riding without hands, riding on just the back wheel, and riding backwards.

3.  Go out into the street when the front yard/sidewalk got boring.

4.  Take a bag of newspapers from a stranger, a random paper boy, who wants help delivering papers (obviously George doesn't live in post-9/11 Washington DC where there'd be a bomb squad in seconds).

5.  Stop delivering said newspapers and make boats with the neighborhood's newspapers.

6.  Play near water by herself.

7.  Ride without a helmet (should have mentioned that first) and thus hit her head on a rock when front wheel hits a big one.

8.  Accept an invitation from TWO male strangers and GET INTO THEIR CAR to perform at a circus.

I am not making any of this up!  Go check out the book if you think I'm lying!  Obviously, the world was a little different, for both kids and monkey-pets, when the book was written in 1952.  There are so many incredible books that were written before 2000; this is not one of them.  Should I request that it be banned from our local library?  I guess not.