Big News for Curiosity Day!

Today is Curiosity Day (click here for kit), so deemed to honor the inquisitive spirit of Curious George. Anna’s mother remembers reading about Curious George when she, like the monkey in those books, was in the hospital as a child, and the copy Doug remembers was from his father’s childhood. The adventures of Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat—riding a bike, flying a kite—were read to us as children, over and over again. And we’ve been curious people ever since.

H.A. and Margret Rey created the characters in these books. As World War II encroached on Paris, they grabbed the manuscript of Curious George and fled on bicycles. They made their way to Brazil, and the book was published in 1941. For Curious George Gets a Medal, the Reys were inspired by a newspaper story about two mice sent into space to study the effects of weightlessness. A marketing decision left Margret without credit for years, but the writing-illustrating couple is now properly named as co-authors. The Reys moved to Boston in 1963, and that’s where Curiosity Day began.

STS-133 Crew (NASA photo)

And what are we curious about? Too much! Right now, we are especially interested in the impending end of manned spaceflight and the last two Space Shuttle missions. What did we do about it? We got press credentials for STS-133 in November. We’re charged with writing an article for Chapman Magazine that pulls together our experience, the aerospace history of Southern California (the Shuttle was built here), and the NASA collection under development at Chapman’s Leatherby Libraries. Of course, we’ll write all about it at Lofty Ambitions too.

Big news: DOUG AND ANNA GET TO SEE THE PENULTIMATE SHUTTLE LAUNCH UP CLOSE! Yay!

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