The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle

The first thing that I had to chose when I decided to read The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, by Hugh Lofting, was which edition to pick. I tried reading the original edition online here, but I don't have an e-reader and I really like reading in bed.

After looking at Amanda's post on the different editions and the content that was removed, I settled on Bantam's Yearling 1988 paperback (shown here), which was the one my local library had on the shelf anyway. I like the fact that it has many of the original illustrations and it is upfront (well, in the afterword) about the editing and the reasons for doing it. I don't really like the cover, though. Pink? Are they trying to drive boys away from it? When I went Googling for this cover, though, I found that Bantam had changed the design and the cover, and the new blue-green one was much nicer.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the first part of the story. I think that I had read at least the beginning of this book as a child (I remembered Tommy Stubbins and Polynesia and Dab-Dab, though maybe this was from a different Doctor Dolittle story), but it didn't make enough of an impression on me that I ever re-read it, or asked for my own copy.

As an adult, I particularly liked the description of the Doctor's garden (in the chapter appropriately titled 'The Garden of Dreams'), probably because it really is my dream garden:

When breakfast was over the Doctor took me out to show me the garden. Well, if the house had been interesting, the garden was a hundred times more so. At first, you did not realize how big it was. When you were sure that you had seen it all, you would peer over a hedge or turn a corner or look up some steps, and there was a whole new part.

It had everything. There were wide lawns with carved stone seats, green with moss. Over the lawns hung weeping willows, and their feathery bough tips brushed the velvet grass when they swung with the wind. The old flagged paths had high clipped yew hedges on either side of them, so that they looked like the narrow streets of some old town; and through the hedges, doorways had been made; and over the doorways were shapes like vases and peacocks and a half-moons all trimmed out of the living trees. There was a lovely marble fishpond with golden carp and blue water lilies in it and big green frogs. A high brick wall alongside the kitchen garden was all covered with pink and yellow peaches ripening in the sun. There was a wonderful great oak, hollow in the trunk, big enough for four men to hide inside. Many summerhouses there were, too - some of wood and some of stone - and one of them was full of books to read (p. 44-45).

There's more, too - there is also an outdoor fireplace, couches (with wheels on them) to sleep upon on warm summer nights, rocks, ferns, and a treehouse, and loads of birds, and "stoats and tortoises and dormice" and "toads of different colors and sizes" (p 45).

So I was happily reading along, enjoying Lofting's aptitude for description, and the character of Dr. Dolittle, who is rather charming, and then Tommy and the Doctor (does anyone else think of Doctor Who with all these references to "the Doctor" and with everyone calling John Dolittle "Doctor" instead of Dr. D. or Dr. Dolittle?) and Bumpo and some animals set out on their journey to Spider Monkey Island.

I got increasingly uncomfortable at the way the Indians on Spider Monkey Island are portrayed. Long Arrow is a great naturalist, but his people - the Popsipetel - are so backwards they don't even know how to use fire, or cook their food. Now this is interesting, because this was a huge Victorian myth in the 19th century - that there were actually humans in far off "savage" places who had so little material culture that they didn't have fire (or clothes or tools) or cook their food.

There is absolutely no evidence that any people anywhere in the world did not use fire, by the way, as Richard Wrangham describes in a recent book (Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human), which proposes that the use of fire was as essential to human evolution as walking on two legs, hunting, or using tools. So having John Dolittle not only show the Indians "what town sewers were and how garbage should be collected each day and burned" (p. 271), and make a dam and purify their drinking water to prevent "many of the sicknesses that they had suffered from before" (p. 272), and teach them metallurgy, democracy, and "the proper care of babies, with a host of other subjects" (p. 273), but for him to give them something that essentially makes them human? Yeah, more than a little condescending. And this part of the book can't be as easily removed as the pictures of Bumpo and the descriptions of his wife.

The journey home in the great glass sea snail is wonderful and whimsical, and something I'm glad to have read. I just wish the Doctor had stuck to animals and never met the Popsipetels or the Bag-jagderags, or become King Jong Thinkalot.

The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle

I had a very fun time reading The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting, the second winner of the newbery medal. This book is full of adventure and you don't really have to think too hard to read it. It is a real page turner with really short chapters that allow you to stop and go whenever you please.
The book is set in the time frame of the late 1830's to the early 1840's and is told by an old man looking back in time to when he was nine years old. He tells the story of many of his amazing adventures he had as a boy and meeting the famous Doctor Dolittle.
One day while wandering the boy comes upon a squirrel that had been injured by a hawk. The boy rescues the squirrel but it is in very bad shape and is in need of serious attention. The boy hears of the famous Doctor Dolittle and eventually meets him and asks if he would look at the squirrel for him. The doctor agrees and treats the squirrel. The doctor has a great advantage over other naturalists in that he can talk to the animals and because of that he is able to solve many problems and hardships.
From here on out the doctor and the boy are great friends and the boy eventually becomes the doctors assistant and is allowed to live with the doctor and go on his voyages with him.
They decide to go on a voyage to the floating Spidermonkey Island to study natural history and there they rescue and meet one of the greatest naturalists of all time, Long Arrow.
While on the island the doctor helps the poor people considerably. He helped them overcome the cold. He showed them fire. He fought in battle with them and he eventually became a king against his will.
One of the greatest things in this book to me was the doctors ability to talk with the animals and his views on them.
One of the points people sometimes make about this book is the racism. It is true that in the older version there are some refrences to it. I don't think that is one of the major points that Lofting was trying to make while writing the book though. The new version of this book has been edited and I was surprised to find that quite a considerable amount of writing had been taken away from the older version which is really disappointing because much of it did not have any racism at all. There is an afterward in the new book by his son explaining why the old version was edited.
I'm glad I read both the new and the old version so I did not miss anything. I would recommend this book for children because of its adventure and it's lessons towards kindness and respect towards animals.

Dr. Dolittle by Hugh Lofting

From Adventures in Reading:

Preparing to read Seth Lerer’s Children’s Literature, I decided to first delve back into my own childhood and reread Hugh Lofting’s The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle and by incident this also kicks off my first book for the Newbery Project. Recently at work, various aged co-workers and I were discussing the excitement surrounding the fast-growing young adult section and reflecting on our own young adulthoods which had far less reading fodder. When I was a young adult literature was certainly available, but I often found myself searching for something to read and one of these conquests led me to Lofting.

It’s difficult to not be familiar with some aspect of Doctor Dolittle even if it’s only that he was a character who could speak with animals. This 1923 Newbery Award winner is told in hindsight from the somewhat fatalistic viewpoint of young Tommy Stubbins. After becoming more or less apprenticed to the good Doctor, the two and their human and animals friends begin a voyage to Spider Monkey Island off the coast of Brazil. Various adventures ensue including stowaways, bull fighting, floating islands, and a shipwreck.

Central ideas in the book are fairly representative of the time; particularly Dolittle’s interest in natural history (the popular scientific study of animals or plants) and the Dawin-esque feel of exploration stealthily lodges Doctor Dolittle into a bubble of historical consciousness. Lofting’s sketches illustrate the quite diminutive Tommy exploring Dolittle’s world. The back story is also quite interesting, as apparently Lofting wrote these tales out as letters to his children when he was a soldier during the World War.

The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle is problematic however in its representation of race, indigenous culture, and colonialism. Two characters in particular stand out: Bumpo an African prince being educated at Oxford who incorrectly uses lengthy words and prefers going about barefoot and Long Arrow a stoic South American indian who venerates Dolittle. So imagine my surprise when I finished the book and learned in Christopher Lofting’s afterword that the Yearling edition is actually an edited version from the original text and that some socially questionable illustrations had also been removed. I confess my interest is peaked more than ever to reread this book in its original format.

The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle - 1923

The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
Illustrated by Sonja Lumat
Doctor Dolittle, Book 2

Pages: 276
First Published: 1922
Genre: children's animal fantasy, adventure
Awards: Newbery Medal 1923
Rating: 5/5



First sentence:

All that I have written so far about Doctor Dolittle I heard long after it happened from those who had known him -- indeed a great deal of it took place
before I was born.

Comments: In this second book of the series we meet Tommy Stubbins, the boy who becomes Dolittle's assistant. Once again Dolittle sets off on a voyage this time to meet the great botanist Long Arrow, son of Golden Arrow and along the way they meet many side adventures. Dolittle becomes set on learning the shellfish language, meeting the Great Glass Sea Snail, ends up on Spidermonkey Island, saves the island from floating into the Antarctic and helps the natives build a thriving city and society.

Both the 8yo and I thoroughly enjoyed every word of this book. Everything a child could want in a book is here: adventure, fantasy, science and animals all rolled into one. The action starts in the first chapter and is non-stop right to the very end which comes to a heart warming ending that leaves the reader with the feeling that there most certainly must be a sequel.

The edition I have is unaltered from the original text. At least I can find no indication that it has been altered, though the spelling has been Americanized. This edition is part of the Grosset & Dunlap Illustrated junior Library which has been in publication since the 1950s so I am fairly confident the text has not been edited. Since these books are often cited as being racist by PC fanatics I will note that I found absolutely nothing offensive in the book at all. The original illustrations have been omitted and replaced by a handful of full-colour plates illustrated in a cute fashion which I am not fond of. I will look for an original edition with Lofting's illustrations to replace this one someday.

Having read the first two together I can say for certain we will continue on with the series. The 8yo thought it was one of the best books we've read together and we both agree it is even better than the first book. Having read this as a child myself it is great to see that it lived up to my expectations and then some. Recommended!

The Story of Mankind Online

No, I'm not talking about a history of the internet. Here are a couple of links to online editions of the first Newbery winner - The Story of Mankind, by Hendrik Willem van Loon, which won the medal in 1922 - at this Prize-Winning Books Online page produced by a University of Pennsylvania librarian. The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, by Hugh Lofting (1923 winner) and several early Newbery Honors books can also be found through this link, along with lots of early Pulitzer and Nobel prize winners.

The Voyages of Doctor Doolittle

Tommy Stubbins is thrilled to make the acquaintance of the esteemed Doctor Doolittle. Doolittle has the amazing ability to talk to animals and he loves to travel; these two combine to send him off on many adventures. And Tommy is able to come along, a witness to all the adventures of the doctor. They meet up with the world’s greatest naturalist, Long Arrow, on a floating island. The doctor teaches the people of Spain a new way to fight bulls. And the doctor is made king.

The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle and Other Tales by Hugh Lofting

Stars: ****1/2

NOTE: The picture isn't of the version I read but I can't find it right now. When I go home I'll write down the ISBN and next time come and find the right graphic.

I had never heard of Doctor Dolittle until the Eddie Murphy movie came out and although the movie was silly, the idea of being able to talk to animals was an interesting one. So when I found out it was a book first I knew I wanted to read it. One day I found it at a library sale and I took it home.

The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, if you don’t already know is the story of the adventures of a Human Doctor, turned Animal Doctor who can speak almost every animal language. He is the best animal doctor around. His life goals are to see the bottom of the sea and to find the legendary sea serpent. He travels around the globe meeting new animals and people, healing sick and hurt animals and learning new things.

The premise is very cute and creative and I enjoyed reading about Doctor Dolittle’s adventures. It’s nice to read a book with a plot that is entirely different from other books instead of the same basic story over and over with a few changes.

I can see why it won the Newbery Medal although I’m curious as to what other books were in the running that year as most of the other Newbery Winning Books I’ve read so far were a lot better.

The Voyages of Doctor Doolittle, by Hugh Lofting

The Voyages of Doctor Doolittle, by Hugh Lofting

Yes, I have to admit, I gave "The Story of Mankind" a pass. I tried. I really did. I'll go back and try again some day.

Moving on ...

Having seen the 1967 Rex Harrison version of Doctor Doolittle many times over the years, the book was a great delight, filling out more of the details of a well-loved childhood memory.

It's a very quick read, with short chapters, so ideal for reading with a small child. The story moves along quickly, and is told in a conversations "story telling" style. It tells of the famous Doctor Doolittle, the "nacheralist" who can speak to the animals. He travels around the world on The Curlew, meeting various animals and learning their languages.

Highly recommended, both for a casual fun read, as well as for reading to your kids.

By the way, due to the age of the book, you can obtain it online a number of places for free, including Page By Page Books.

The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle

I really wanted to like this book by Hugh Lofting. It sounded like such a fun premise -- man talks to animals and all -- that I was hoping for a fun, whimsical book, something like Alice in Wonderland or Winnie the Pooh.

But I was highly disappointed.

It started out all right: Tommy Stubbins, son of a Puddleby's cobbler meets Dr. Dolittle, highly regarded naturalist and animal doctor. He's not a veterinarian -- there was a great aside by Polynesia, the parrot:

"Oh, of course there are those vet persons, to be sure. But, bless you, they're no good. You see, they can't understand the animals' language, so how can you expect them to be any use? Imagine yourself, or your father, going to a doctor who could not understand a word you say -- nor even tell you in your own language what you must do to get well! Poof! -- those vets! They're that stupid, you've no idea!"

Anyway. Tommy meets Dr. Dolittle and decides he wants to become a naturalist and talk to animals, too. They arrange it with Tommy's parents, and Tommy becomes Dr. Dolittle's apprentice. And then the adventures (and the problems with the book) start.

Dr. Dolittle is your quintessential uber-Englishman. He manages to keep a man from being hung, sail a ship with only two other crewman (Tommy and an African prince named -- cringe -- Bumpo), beat a Spanish matador at his own sport (bullfighting is cruel and vicious and wrong), find a floating island, find and free Long Arrow (yes, an Indian), practically single-handedly win a war, and become king of the island natives (the Popsipetels) and "educate them" before the book is through. By the end I'd had enough of Dr. John Dolittle.

Then there's the completely racist tone. Yes, I know, it was written in 1921. But still. Bumpo (aside from the name) is a complete doofus, mangling the English language at every turn. Which, while quaint at first soon became highly annoying. (One quote: "How stratagenious!" Bumpo chuckled. "As Cicero said, Parrots cum parishoioners facilime congregation.") I know it's meant to be funny -- and often it was -- but it was at the expense of Bumpo's dignity. Even Long Arrow (the greatest naturalist around) was often at the mercy of O Kindly One (as he took to calling Dr. Dolittle). The island natives were completely helpless, in the dark (both literally and figuratively) until the Great White Englishman came and brought them light. Only Tommy and the animals managed to avoid the complete domination of the white man (ah, but then Tommy was white, too).

In fact, the only character I liked was Polynesia. She was sensible enough, always complaining about the animals bugging the doctor during mealtime. She even had the sense to put a side bet on the doctor during the bull fight thereby getting enough money to fund the rest of their voyage. And after two years on the island, she decided that she wanted to go home, so she got everyone (meaning Tommy, Bumpo and the animals) together and came up with a plan to trick the doctor into leaving his job as king. Here she is, trying to convince the doctor to take a holiday:

"Oh bother the theater -- and the babies, too," snapped Polynesia. "The theater can wait a week. And as for the babies, they never have anything more than colic. How do you suppose babies got along before you came here, for Heaven's sake? Take a holiday... You need it."

But it's biggest fault is that it wasn't silly enough. Lofting was alternately too serious -- launching into lectures about zoos or bull fighting or Indians or something or other -- and just plain dull. It always felt like he was forcing the silliness, trying too hard to come up with something odd or original. The best whimsical books are much less heavy-handed in their, um, whimsy, allowing the books to soar. And in the end, Dr. Dolittle fell flat.