Children's
Books Reviewed By Children Dr. Dolittle's Zoo. By Hugh Lofting. (Cape. 7s. 6d.) (Reviewed by Charlotte Williams-Ellis, aged 7).
Da. Dourrnm was a very nice man who knew animal language and who used to be a person's doctor and now is an animal doctor.
In this book he turned his garden into a town for animals. These are some of .the names of the houses : the Rat and Mouse Club, the Rabbits' Apartment House, the Home for Cross-bred Dogs, the Badger's Tavern, the Squirrel's Hotel and the Foxes' Meeting-house.
In the picture with the ducks the man is Dr. Dolittle. They are bringing him a message from Dab Dab (who was the doctor's housekeeper), and she sent to tell him that he was to hurry home.
I liked the surprise party. I liked the punch-bowl circus. The white mouse in the punch-bowl circus dressed himself up with some heavy black grease paint which Swizzle (the old clown dog of the circus in another book) had lent him from his own private make-up box. The white* mouse " had waxed his whiskers so that they looked exactly like the long ferocious moustaches of a regular ring-master."
The horrid old Jackdaw in the picture always ate the crumbs that were put out :by the farmer's wife, and pushed the mice away. One day the Jackdaw was caught and put in a wicker cage, and Corky the -mouse and his friends came and sat on the top of the cage. Corky came a little too near and the Jackdaw, put his beak through the bars of the cage and pulled him inside ; and he told the other mice and Corky's vete it they didn't gnaw out the bottom of the cage he'd bite off Corky's head. And they were able to gnaw out the bottom, and so Lucifer could escape and he let Corky go.
I think this book is just as interesting as the other Dolittle books, and the other Dolittle books are very nice and few books are as good as. them. They are as nice as Lear's complete nonsense book, only nice in quite a different way.
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