Doctor Dolittle's Post Office
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Doctor Dolittle's Post Office is the third of Hugh Lofting's Doctor Dolittle books. Set on the West Coast of Africa, the book follows the episodic format of most other books in the series. In the beginning of the book, Doctor Dolittle helps to capture a slaver trader's ship, then organizes the postal service of a small African kingdom. Over the course of later chapters, he discovers a hidden island populated by prehistoric creatures, meets the oldest living creature on Earth, gets thrown into another African jail, invents animal alphabets, defeats at least two armies, and each of the animals in the Dolittle family tells a personal story. The postal program grows into a worldwide postal and publishing service for the benefit of animals everywhere.
[edit] Analysis
Like other Lofting books, the stories told are extremely charming. The level of good cheer in the stories is as high as any in the Dolittle canon.
Unfortunately, like other Lofting books, the depiction of Africans is at best paternalistic. The king of the local kingdom does not know how a post office functions, likes to see himself on stamps, loves candy, and occasionally sells his people into slavery. When Doctor Dolittle shows up, the good doctor responds by organizing the post office.
The final segment of the story tells the story of the Doctor's journey to meet Mudface the Turtle, the oldest living creature on Earth, who relates the story of the Great Flood to the Doctor in the final chapters of the book. This extended deconstructionist tale does not fit into the format of the book and so readers must wait to hear the tale in a later volume of the series, Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake.
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