The creators of "Curious George" built bicycles to flee Paris as the German army closed in

Before Curious George reached global fame, he almost didn’t make it onto the pages of any book at all. You could say he was born in the basket of a bicycle escaping the Nazis in the 1940s. This story is presented with much attention and lots of detailed descriptions in the book The Journey That Saved Curious George: The True Wartime Escape of Margret and H.A. Rey written by Louise Borden and illustrated by Allan Drummond. The book presents George’s creators who, in 1940, just before Nazi invasion of Paris, fled France carrying the manuscript and illustration of what would later become Curious George.

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