To help share Hans and Margret Rey's story with the world, Yamazki is asking for help in financing the completion of her documentary, MONKEY BUSINESS, through a KICKSTARTER campaign. In addition to helping fund a wonderful documentary, supporters of the campaign also will receive thank you gifts depending on their level of contribution that include timeless original Hans Rey prints on items ranging from t-shirts, tote bags and coffee mugs to Curious George inspired kites and beach balls. Whether you can contribute $5 or $5,000 every dollar helps in bringing this documentary to fruition.
Hans was living in Paris, France with his wife Margret in the late 1930s working as a cartoonist for a newspaper. A publisher enjoyed Hans' cartoons of wild animals and asked him to create a children's book featuring them. While the book that resulted Raffy and the Nine Monkeys wasn't very successful it did prompt Margret to begin working with Hans on a standalone book featuring one of its mischievous monkeys named Curious George. The Reys had just finished their manuscript for Curious George which involved Margret writing the text and Hans providing the illustrations, when the Nazis invaded France.
As German Jews living in Paris, the Reys knew they were in danger if they stayed in France. Hans cobbled together two bicycles from spare parts and on the morning of June 14, 1940 the Reys fled the city with only warm coats, some food, and the manuscript for Curious George. The Nazi army entered Paris just a few hours after Hans and Margret had departed heading to Spain. Making their way to Brazil, they founded Rio de Janeiro's first advertising agency and also had Curious George published in 1941.
The Reys eventually moved to the United States to focus on a career as children's book authors producing six more Curious George stories between 1947 and 1966. The Rey's final story, Curious George Goes to the Hospital, was written after representatives from Boston Children's Hospital contacted the couple asking if they could write a book to help prepare children for a hospital stay. Apparently, the Reys took a lot of satisfaction from this book because parents would frequently write to them thanking it for easing a child's hospital visit.
In creating MONKEY BUSINESS, Yamazki discovered that astonishing details documenting the Rey's escape from Paris and their lives as children's book authors had been carefully preserved in more than 300 boxes of materials stored at the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi. These included Hans' wartime journals, photographs taken by Margret, unpublished George sketches, brainstorming notes, and letters to and from the book's publisher. With the cooperation of the Rey Estate, MONKEY BUSINESS provides a "behind-the-scenes glimpse of how Curious George came to be.
One of the aspects of the documentary that really impresses me is how MONKEY BUSINESS transforms portions of it into animated sequences that mimic the style of Hans' Curious George illustrations. I found it to be a touching tribute witnessing Hans and Margret both in real life photographs and how they would have appeared if transformed into the pages of one of their books. MONKEY BUSINESS combines animated sequences that are integrated with archived material from the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection and interviews of people who knew the Reys personally or have studied the couple's artistic and literary accomplishments. Add in a narrator and graphical elements like page turns and MONKEY BUSINESS promises to evoke the feeling of flipping through the pages of a Curious George book.
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