The book is set with a home base of England (Puddleby-on-the-Marsh). The subsequent Prologue sets us up to believe that the narrator (soon revealed as Tommy Stubbins) has personal experience with Doctor Dolittle and has a 200 year old parrot named Polynesia with a flawless memory whom the narrator consults for accuracy in telling the tale. x) This is all well explained in the Foreword. So this new edition is polished up a bit - so as not to be insensitive nor "undermine a child's self-esteem". Because the original work was written in the early part of the twentieth century, it was full of political incorrectness that was no longer tolerated by the late 1970s and caused the book to go out of print in the U.S. It has nice illustrations, some even in full page color, done by Michael Hague. We read the Books of Wonder 2001 edition published by Harper Collins and it was the icing on the cake.
How many kids have imaginary friends? Aren't a good portion of the Disney characters talking animals? So this story works well for kids and as an adult reading it to my 5y11m son, the social commentary and world travel kept me interested. Adults and older kids might find a story about talking animals lame but for younger children this is right out of their realm of imaginative reality that they live with daily. so just like you as an adult can look back and see phases or periods in your life (your elementary years, high school years, when you lived in that town or worked in that place) Doctor Dolittle has long, involved periods (time on an island, time at home) that are so exciting and full of adventure it seems as if they could stand alone as independent stories and you almost forget what came before because you are so absorbed in that small adventure.
Perhaps that makes him a bit more real as a character though, and, let's face it, any character that can talk to animals needs all the help they can get to appear real. Well - not really, not even fictionally but "The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle" might better be titled "The Nine Lives of Doctor Dolittle" as it really seems to be multiple stories in one.
Perhaps it's because he's secretly a cat! Dolittle and know that he can talk to animals. I'm sure that you, like I did, have at least a precursory knowledge of Dr.
I had heard of it all my life, and seen the Eddie Murphy modern day movie spin on it, but had never touched the actual book.
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