Curious George Rides a Bike

Curious George Rides a Bike is a children's book written and illustrated by Margret Rey and H. A. Rey and published by Houghton Mifflin in 1952. It is the third book of the original Curious George series and tells the story of George's new bicycle and his experiences performing with an animal show.

The book was later adapted into an animated short film from Weston Woods Studios in 1958 and an episode of a PBS Kids TV show of the same name in 2007, but with a few differences, such as George getting his bike repaired by the Renkins.

Plot
To celebrate the three years since he brought George home from the jungle, The Man With The Yellow Hat plans to take George to the animal show, and he has also bought George a bicycle. The man leaves for an errand and tells George to stay close to the house. George is shown doing many tricks on his bike, including riding backwards, and riding on the back wheel. While riding, George meets the local newsboy and George helps him deliver the papers. After tossing the papers to one side of the street, George sees a stream in the distance when he comes to the last house, so George rides on and does not deliver the papers to the other side. At the stream, and sees two boys playing with boats, and decides he wants to play with boats as well, so George gets off the bike and starts folding all the newspapers into boats (with helpful diagrams to help the reader do the same) and set them off in the water to watch them float around. As George watches his boats float down the stream, he is still riding the bike, but forgetting to watch where he was going, George crashes into a rock, emerging unhurt but severely damaging his front wheel. Not knowing what to do now (after trying to ride normally, then trying to carry the bike), George breaks down into tears, but then brightens up when he realized he can still ride the bike on the back wheel.

As Geroge is doing this, he comes across trucks (which resemble airport towing tractors) pulling trailers carrying the animals for the animal show. In one of the trucks is the show's director, along with Bob, his mechanic, who fixes George's damaged bike wheel. The director decides to put George in the show as a bugle player and gives him a green coat and cap similar to Bob's. As they set up, the director warns George not to feed the animals, especially the ostrich, due to his propensity to eat anything that is held near him. The show also features an elephant, a rhino, a hippo, a giraffe, a camel, a kangaroo and her joey, a leopard, a sea lion, and a bear cub. When George gets too curious about that, he walks with his bugle in front the ostrich, and the ostrich snatches it and gets the bugle lodged in his throat. After a struggle to get the bugle out of the ostrich, the director angrily scolds George for not listening to him, bans him from the show, and makes him sit on a bench until he gets sent home. While George regrets his mistake, he notices the ostrich pull a string that allows a cage door to open and the bear cub to escape. Seeing this, George grabs the bugle, blows a warning, then hops on his bike and takes off after the bear. At first the workers and the director think he was misbehaving again, until they see the empty bear cage and the ostrich nibbling at the string.

By the time George catches up to the bear cub, it had climbed a tree, but was now hanging precariously on a branch (which explains that bear cubs can climb up a tree easily, but getting down is much harder) scared while other workers (who chased the bear behind George) were standing there hoping to catch it. George climbs up the tree, puts the bear in the empty newspaper bag he still had, and lowers him safely into the workers' arms. When George gets back down from the tree, he is praised for his bravery and is rehired for the show.

The whole town comes to see the show, including the newsboy, the Man, and even all the residents who never got their newspapers that day due to George. Afterwards, he is praised for his act, and got to keep the coat, cap, and the bugle. The Man then takes George home to bed.

Reviews
Curious George Rides a Bike was reviewed by Kirkus Reviews.