Fred's Prayer Machine Book

My mother read this book to my brother and me when we were children in the 1960s. I remember loving the story and, especially, being enamored of Dr. Dolittle's ability to talk with the animals. It became controversial in the 1970s when the portrayal of the African characters was considered to be offensive and racist. The version I recently re-read is the lightly edited version by the McKissacks to remove the offending descriptions and illustrations. It does not, however, remove the rather offensive portrayal of Native Americans as childlike people who don't even have fire and are happily civilized by Dolittle to the point of complete dependency. However, Dolittle's adventures with the native folk of a floating island consists of a great part of the voyages of the book's title, making it rather difficult to have them edited out without significantly shortening and changing the book. And, of course, the colonialist attitude toward native people was very endemic to the times and one that we are only now finally starting to shake off. Despite this troubling aspect, I still found the same delight I had as a child in the portrayal of the doctor who could talk with animals and in the description of his home and garden filled with animals. I especially enjoyed (and had forgotten) the description of Dr. Dolittle as a fat, funny little man. The movie musical with Rex Harrison that came out during my childhood had unfortunately replaced a very different image of the doctor in my memory. I was very distressed, however, with the many scenes of Dr. Dolittle happily cooking and eating sausages and bacon while surrounded by his talking animal friends (including a pig!). Surely, if anything was to make one a vegetarian, it would be the ability to actually communicate with animals! And even if one was barbaric enough to still eat (cousins of) one's friends, surely one would have the courtesy to do so out of sight of those friends and not have them participate in the very cooking and serving of the meal! Other than the distressing consumption of animal flesh, I did enjoy re-visiting Dr. Dolittle and his friends in the first two or three sections of the book. I would have difficulty with reading it aloud to young children today due to the portrayal of Native Americans though it could lead to some very interesting discussions when read with older children. Like many of the Newbery books from the first decade, however, I think it needs to be put in context for modern children -- a better teaching book than a pleasure book.