More than three generations of Americans have grown up reading the stories of an irrepressible little brown monkey known in this country as Curious George. But few people know about the incredible journey made by his creators, Margret and H.A. Rey, to escape the Nazi invasion of Paris at the start of World War II.

Stashing a few precious belongings and manuscripts in their knapsacks and the baskets of their bicycles, the Jewish couple fled Paris in June 1940, starting a five-month odyssey by bike, train and boat that would eventually bring them to American shores.

Beginning in the years prior to the war, The Wartime Escape explores the Rey's early creative collaborations and traces how the story of George himself (originally titled The Adventures of Fifi) spanned the wartime period.