![]() Their questions hinted at their degree of imaginative immersion: “How did the monkeys get back to the ground after they made the bridge with their arms?” “Does the pushmi-pullyu actually have two heads?” We finished the first book in the series, “The Story of Doctor Dolittle.” Say what you will about Zoom, but I can report that the kids were transfixed. I felt that the kids needed an escape from a reality turned dismal, and I thought of the good doctor and his talking parrot, dog, pig, monkey and pushmi-pullyu. I had been reading high-minded founding father biographies to third graders at the Academy of the City, a charter school in Queens, where I serve on the board. I caught up with the doctor again this spring, when school went virtual. ![]() My own acquaintance with the doctor dates back to 1963, when, at age 9, I triumphantly completed “The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle,” my first big book, weighing in at 364 pages - a jumbo size for any work for children. ![]() Doctor Dolittle, the hero of Hugh Lofting’s children’s series about an English country doctor who learned to speak the language of animals, turns 100 this year. ![]()
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