{"product_id":"2940012128010","title":"The Story of Doctor Dolittle","description":"INTRODUCTION\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are some of us now reaching middle age who discover themselves to\u003cbr\u003ebe lamenting the past in one respect if in none other, that there are\u003cbr\u003eno books written now for children comparable with those of thirty years\u003cbr\u003eago.  I say written FOR children because the new psychological business\u003cbr\u003eof writing ABOUT them as though they were small pills or hatched in\u003cbr\u003esome especially scientific method is extremely popular today.  Writing\u003cbr\u003efor children rather than about them is very difficult as everybody who\u003cbr\u003ehas tried it knows.  It can only be done, I am convinced, by somebody\u003cbr\u003ehaving a great deal of the child in his own outlook and sensibilities.\u003cbr\u003eSuch was the author of \"The Little Duke\" and \"The Dove in the Eagle's\u003cbr\u003eNest,\" such the author of \"A Flatiron for a Farthing,\" and \"The Story\u003cbr\u003eof a Short Life.\" Such, above all, the author of \"Alice in Wonderland.\"\u003cbr\u003eGrownups imagine that they can do the trick by adopting baby language\u003cbr\u003eand talking down to their very critical audience.  There never was a\u003cbr\u003egreater mistake. The imagination of the author must be a child's\u003cbr\u003eimagination and yet maturely consistent, so that the White Queen in\u003cbr\u003e\"Alice,\" for instance, is seen just as a child would see her, but she\u003cbr\u003econtinues always herself through all her distressing adventures.  The\u003cbr\u003esupreme touch of the white rabbit pulling on his white gloves as he\u003cbr\u003ehastens is again absolutely the child's vision, but the white rabbit as\u003cbr\u003eguide and introducer of Alice's adventures belongs to mature grown\u003cbr\u003einsight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGeniuses are rare and, without being at all an undue praiser of times\u003cbr\u003epast, one can say without hesitation that until the appearance of Hugh\u003cbr\u003eLofting, the successor of Miss Yonge, Mrs. Ewing, Mrs. Gatty and Lewis\u003cbr\u003eCarroll had not appeared.  I remember the delight with which some six\u003cbr\u003emonths ago I picked up the first \"Dolittle\" book in the Hampshire\u003cbr\u003ebookshop at Smith College in Northampton.  One of Mr. Lofting's\u003cbr\u003epictures was quite enough for me. The picture that I lighted upon when\u003cbr\u003eI first opened the book was the one of the monkeys making a chain with\u003cbr\u003etheir arms across the gulf. Then I looked further and discovered Bumpo\u003cbr\u003ereading fairy stories to himself.  And then looked again and there was\u003cbr\u003ea picture of John Dolittle's house.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut pictures are not enough although most authors draw so badly that if\u003cbr\u003eone of them happens to have the genius for line that Mr. Lofting shows\u003cbr\u003ethere must be, one feels, something in his writing as well.  There is.\u003cbr\u003eYou cannot read the first paragraph of the book, which begins in the\u003cbr\u003eright way \"Once upon a time\" without knowing that Mr. Lofting believes\u003cbr\u003ein his story quite as much as he expects you to.  That is the first\u003cbr\u003eessential for a story teller.  Then you discover as you read on that he\u003cbr\u003ehas the right eye for the right detail.  What child-inquiring mind\u003cbr\u003ecould resist this intriguing sentence to be found on the second page of\u003cbr\u003ethe book:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Besides the gold-fish in the pond at the bottom of his garden, he had\u003cbr\u003erabbits in the pantry, white mice in his piano, a squirrel in the linen\u003cbr\u003ecloset and a hedgehog in the cellar.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd then when you read a little further you will discover that the\u003cbr\u003eDoctor is not merely a peg on whom to hang exciting and various\u003cbr\u003eadventures but that he is himself a man of original and lively\u003cbr\u003echaracter.  He is a very kindly, generous man, and anyone who has ever\u003cbr\u003ewritten stories will know that it is much more difficult to make\u003cbr\u003ekindly, generous characters interesting than unkindly and mean ones.\u003cbr\u003eBut Dolittle is interesting.  It is not only that he is quaint but that\u003cbr\u003ehe is wise and knows what he is about.  The reader, however young, who\u003cbr\u003emeets him gets very soon a sense that if he were in trouble, not\u003cbr\u003enecessarily medical, he would go to Dolittle and ask his advice about\u003cbr\u003eit.  Dolittle seems to extend his hand from the page and grasp that of\u003cbr\u003ehis reader, and I can see him going down the centuries a kind of Pied\u003cbr\u003ePiper with thousands of children at his heels.  But not only is he a\u003cbr\u003edarling and alive and credible but his creator has also managed to\u003cbr\u003einvest everybody else in the book with the same kind of life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow this business of giving life to animals, making them talk and\u003cbr\u003ebehave like human beings, is an extremely difficult one.  Lewis Carroll\u003cbr\u003eabsolutely conquered the difficulties, but I am not sure that anyone\u003cbr\u003eafter him until Hugh Lofting has really managed the trick; even in such\u003cbr\u003ea masterpiece as \"The Wind in the Willows\" we are not quite convinced.\u003cbr\u003eJohn Dolittle's friends are convincing because their creator never\u003cbr\u003eforces them to desert their own characteristics.  Polynesia, for\u003cbr\u003einstance, is natural from first to last.  She really does care about\u003cbr\u003ethe Doctor but she cares as a bird would care, having always some place\u0026amp;","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47081173483760,"sku":"2940012128010","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012128010_p0.jpg?v=1763552659","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012128010","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}