Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Doctor Doolittle in the Moon

Written and illustrated by Hugh Lofting. Lippincott & Co, 1928.

I picked this up for cheap at the flea market a couple weeks ago and just fell in love with these illustrations. These aren't even half of the illustrations, there is an illustration every three or four pages in the book. Sometimes it looks like he is illustrating random sentences from the book, the randomness of it is one of the things that cracks me up.

The drawings remind of James Thurber at first glance. Like Thurber and Gary Larson, I love how he can put so much expression in a face with just a dot for an eye and line for a mouth. Particularly in the renderings of Polynesia the Parrot.

Enjoy!


Doctor Doolittle in the Moon


Endpaper - Doctor Doolittle in the Moon


Rigged Himself Up Like a Tree


Title Page - Doctor Doolittle in the Moon


Zip! - The spring was made


Jumping was extraordinarily easy


It was different from any tree I have ever seen


The Doctor kept glancing up uneasily


Polynesia soared into the air


Some of the fruits were as big as a trunk


We approached the bluff


The roundness of this world


"You bet they were not!" grunted Polynesia


An enormous footprint


There was more movement in the limbs of the trees


It was a sort of basin


Watching certain shrubs


We always took care to leave landmarks behind us


The plant life became more elaborate


He held them before the lilies


Leaning back munching a piece of yellow yam


A terrible explosion followed


Watch out, Tommy!


1 comment:

Athena said...

yes I was looking for this book for my neice, I remember it from when I was 8. Love those pictures