The Complete Adventures of Curious George by H. A. Rey, Margret Rey Read Free Book Online

and some of the other letters.
    "BUT," said theman, "there are few words that start with an X and they don't look like an X—

    except one, and that is
Xmas!"

    Santa stands for Xmas.
There is only one Santa so we need only one picture.
George thought Xmas was exciting.

    The big Y
    is a big YAK
    and the small y
    is a small yak: he is still young.
Yaks live in Tibet. If you haven't seen any yaks yet
you may find one at the zoo.

    The big Z
    is a big ZEBRA,
    and the small z is a small zebra.
    The zebras are zipping along with zest.
    "And do you know what?" said the man, "Z is the last letter. Now you know all the 26 letters of the alphabet— and NOW you may have the doughnuts."

    THE END

    Curious George
Goes to the Hospital
    IN COLLABORATION WITH THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL MEDICAL CENTER, BOSTON

    This is George.
    He lived with his friend, the man with the yellow hat. He was a good little monkey, but he was always curious.
    Today George was curious about the big box on the man's desk.

    What could be in it? George could not resist. He simply HAD to open it.
    It was full of funny little pieces of all sorts of shapes and all sorts of colors.
    George took one out. It looked like a piece of candy.

    Maybe it WAS candy. Maybe he could eat it. George put the piece in his mouth—and before he knew, he had swallowed it.

    A while later the man with the yellow hat came home. "Why, George," he said, "I see you have already opened the box with the jigsaw puzzle. It was supposed to be a surprise for you. Well, let's go to work on it."

    Finally the puzzle was finished—
well, almost finished.
One piece was missing.

    The man looked for it everywhere, but he could not find it. "That's strange," he said, "it's a brand-new puzzle. Well, it cannot be helped. Maybe we'll find it in the morning. Let's go to bed now, George."

    The next morning George did not feel well. He had a tummy-ache and did not want to eat his breakfast.
    The man was worried. He went to the telephone and called Doctor Baker. "I'll be over as soon as I can," said the doctor.

    First Doctor Baker looked down George's throat and felt his tummy. Then he took out his stethoscope and listened. "I'm not sure what's wrong," he said. "You'd better take George to the hospital and have an X-ray taken. I'll call them and let them know you are coming."

    "Don't worry, George," said the man when they were driving to the hospital, "you have been there before, when you broke your leg. Remember how nice the doctors and nurses were?"
    George held his big rubber ball tight as they walked up the hospital steps.

    A nurse took them down a long hallway to a room where she gave George something to drink that looked white and tasted sweet. "It is called barium," the nurse explained. "It helps the doctors find out what is wrong with you, George."
    In the next room stood a big table, and a doctor was just putting on a heavy apron. Then he

    gave the man one just like it. George was curious: Would he get one too? No, he did not.
    "You get on that table, George," the doctor said. "I am going to take some X-ray pictures of your insides." He pushed a button and there was a funny noise. "There—now you may get up, and we will have the X-rays developed right away."

    "Now let's see ... There is something there that should not be," said the doctor when they were looking at the X-rays.
    "Why, that looks like ... I think that must be the piece that was missing in our jigsaw puzzle yesterday!" said the man. "Well, well, well," said the doctor, "at least we know now what is wrong with our little patient. I'll tell Doctor Baker right away. George will have to stay at the hospital for a few days. They'll put a tube down his throat to get the piece out. It's only a small operation. I'll call a nurse and have her take you to the admitting office."

    Many people were waiting outside the office. George had to wait too.
    "Look, Betsy," the woman next to him said to her little girl, "there is Curious