This is a derivative use of Curious George IP. the board book is shaped like a train, and has some spinning wheels and some things that can come out (which are now missing.) The story is a super short story of a train, with no "Curious George" content other than the monkey himself.
Curious George is at a ski resort with the Man with the Yellow Hat. The Man tells him to not get in trouble... and of course he does. He jumps in a bobsled and ends up crashing into lift poll. He goes back up and takes a pizza pan down and crashes into a skier, breaking a ski, and taking the broken ski the rest of the way down. He finds the man and then watches the skier then win the race. It is a derivative George book that is a confused moral. George causes a lot of destruction, but the only "good" he seemed to do was be entertaining in his ruckus. It is a bit better than the snowy day book.
The Curious George television film series officially had he involvement of the spouse of the original Curious George author. However, it appears they could not be bothered with reading the actual books. In the first Curious George book, George lives in the zoo. In later capers he hides out with other zoo animals and draws pictures of his animal friends. With that, why would he find the zoo an exciting, novel place?
In this story, the man takes him to the zoo. He gets into trouble swiping bananas. However, he gets out of trouble by feeding the monkeys and getting a kid's balloon. It all follows the formula, even if it doesn't have continuity with the original stories.
Curious George (1941)
Curious George Takes a Job (1947)
Curious George Rides a Bike (1952)
Curious George Gets a Medal (1957)
Curious George Flies a Kite (1958)
Curious George Learns the Alphabet (1963)
Curious George Goes to the Hospital (1966)
This collection has all the original Curious George books. They are of a higher quality than the newer stories by other authors. They also have various elements that would not be considered appropriate today. In the first book, George is found by the Man with the Yellow Hat in Africa. He smokes a pipe and then eagerly goes to the zoo. In all the books, George gets in trouble in various ways due to his curiosity. However, he always manages to get out of the trouble - often by using some of the same skills that got him in trouble in the first place.
These stories are quite old. Some look data. In Curious George Gets a Medal, George is the first animal to bail out of a rocket in space. This was before the space program had really taken off. In others, they just show a time of the past. In Curious George Rides a Bike, George gets a bike that he rides around. He later takes over a friends paper route, breaks his bike, and then joins an animal circus. He gets banished from the circus, then rescues a bear and gets to join. Everyone in the town knows each other and forgives him for not delivering their papers.
While he sometimes seems to be in a bucolic small town, other times he is in the middle of a big city. However, everyone still seems to know each other.
The collection includes CDs that include the audiobook versions of the stories. These include background music for almost the entire time.
The "Learns the Alphabet" was my least favorite. It seemed to be too slow and the pictures formed with letters was forced. For my favorite, I'd pick the first, though the early ones were all good.
