Because even one academic (alas, more than one) has called Curious George, H.A. and Margret Rey’s most famous creation, racist and colonialist, I’m worried about the lesser known, but equally delightful Elizabite—one of my favorite books in kindergarten, and one my children enjoyed. Like many of the best—Ludwig Bemelmans’ Madeleine books, for instance—Elizabite rhymes and uses sophisticated vocabulary, including “carnivorous,” to evoke a spirited venus fly trap whose business it is to assert herself while saving the world.
Knowing the Reys’ biography—German Jews forced to flee Paris when Hitler arrived, and who had to go all the way back to Brazil before they finally made it to the U.S.—it’s not surprising to find in Elizabite another tale of displacement with a happy ending. George is taken from the jungle by the Man with the Yellow Hat; Elizabite is literally uprooted by “a scientist” named Dr. White, wearing a pith helmet. As the Cambridge Dictionary delicately observes: “worn in the past by Europeans in hot countries.” Oh, can’t you see Ibram X. Kendi going to town on that—if he isn’t taken to town first. The Occam’s razor explanation—that the scientist is named “white” to rhyme with “Elizabite” doesn’t suit the illiterati.
Dr. White gets bitten on the finger for his troubles, but abducts Elizabite, feeling “victorious,” takes her back to the lab, places her in a large and comfortable pot, and feeds her sausage with mustard.
Here, we might pause to remember that for the Reys, the U.S. was a kind of laboratory where they’d test to see if they could be accepted as immigrants, as Germans, as Jews and yes, they were! How German they were, enjoying sausage, like Elizabite. How Jewish, adjusting to new ways and new countries. Along comes the dog, Scottie, and snatches the sausage from Elizabite’s jaws. I would consider the next part, in which Elizabite crunches off his tail, a feminist statement, or at least a sign that Elizabite can assert herself in a conflict.
But I can imagine the whines of the post-colonialists, the structuralists, the anti-racists, regarding her revenge as an identification with the aggressive, colonizing white scientist, from whom she learns evil ways.
Instead, I recommend enjoying this amusing moment—Elizabite chomping down on the tail of the dog who stole her sausage, then on the bottom of Mary, the maid sweeping up the broken crockery and bits of mustard jar. She’s strategic, our Elizabite! Grabs one Professor Appleface by the beard, gets moved out to the yard where she grows and grows, even halfway swallowing a burgler.
Like Curious George, who leaves the jungle forever to enjoy adventures in the big city, and like Elizabite, torn from her natural habitat to enjoy sausage in the lab, and later produce “her children bright” in a zoo, the Reys thrived. That’s the lesson, if there has to be one, for any child enjoying this story. It’s a tale speaking to childhood: one is forcibly removed from the womb, and then from the home to go to school, and the displacements of growing up can end very happily indeed.