{"product_id":"five-pounds-robert-walker-9798249700287","title":"Five Pounds: A Novel of Refuge, Defiance, and the Birth of Curious George","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe true story behind the world's most beloved children's book is a story the world was never supposed to know.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn June 1940, as Hitler's armies closed on Paris, two German-Jewish refugees fled the city on makeshift bicycles assembled from junkyard scrap. Strapped to a luggage rack, wrapped in oilcloth, was a five-pound manuscript about a mischievous, tailless monkey - the book the world would come to know as \u003ci\u003eCurious George\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHans and Margret Rey's desperate escape across a collapsing France is one of the great untold dramas of World War II. But their survival hinged on something even more extraordinary: the conscience of a single man.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese Consul-General in Bordeaux, defied a direct order from dictator António de Oliveira Salazar and hand-stamped an estimated 30,000 visas in ten days - the largest rescue action by an individual during the Holocaust. For this, the regime destroyed him. They stripped his title, his pension, his right to practice law. They watched as he sold his estate piece by piece to feed his children. He died in poverty, buried in a borrowed robe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe dictator commanded armies. But the dictator could not unstamp the paper.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eFive Pounds\u003c\/i\u003e braids the Reys' flight with Mendes's defiance into a riveting narrative that moves from Montmartre to the Spanish border, from a Bordeaux consulate besieged by thousands to the charity ward where a hero died forgotten. It is a novel about the terrible arithmetic of survival - what you carry, what you leave behind, and the five pounds of dead weight that turned out to be worth more than everything else combined.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFor readers of\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eAll the Light We Cannot See\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Tattooist of Auschwitz\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003cb\u003eand\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Librarian of Auschwitz\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e - a story that will fundamentally change the way you read \u003ci\u003eCurious George\u003c\/i\u003e to your children.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Robert Walker\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798249700287\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 02\/24\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 176\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.89lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.41d","brand":"Robert Walker","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48447369740543,"sku":"9798249700287","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_58002b2a-c1f7-4f8d-ba9f-e7367871af5d.jpg?v=1777230651","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/five-pounds-robert-walker-9798249700287","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}