_The Story of Doctor Dolittle_ is the first novel in the series, and, I would argue, the best. Like the other books, it is imaginative, humorous, and original. And like the other books, it has the charming illustrations by the author. But unlike the others, it is brief. The writing is brisk and tight. You frequently sense that Lofting is getting straight down to business:
So it was agreed that the monkey, Chee-Chee, was to do the cooking and mending; the dog was to sweep the floors; the duck was to dust and make the beds; the owl, Too-Too, was to keep accounts; and the pig was to do gardening. They made Polynesia, the parrot, housekeeper and laundress because she was the oldest. (25)
Things are done in the way that children would do them, without a lot of planning. The Doctor receives word from a sparrow that some monkeys on an island near Africa need his help. They need to buy tickets. But when the Doctor checks his money box, he finds that it is empty. So he borrows a ship from a sailor. But they need supplies-- hardtack, canned food, rope, and a bell. So the sailor buys it for them on credit. In short order, they begin the voyage:
The cat's-meat man was there to see them off; and he brought a large suet pudding as a present for the Doctor because, he said he had been told, you couldn't get suet puddings in foreign parts.
As soon as they were on the ship, Gub-Gub, the pig, asked where the beds were, for it was four o'clock in the afternoon and he wanted his nap. (31)
There follow adventures with an African king and queen, a bridge of monkeys, the Pushmi-Pullyu, six Barbary pirates, and some ocean gossips. This is the ideal book with which to introduce children to the good Doctor and his animal friends.
There is an old introduction by Hugh Walpole written for the twentieth printing of the novel. In her excellent critical study of children's literature, _The Green and Burning Tree_ (1969), Eleanor Cameron argues that this introduction contains a string of nonsensical assertions: that Lofting was a literary genius; that the animals in Kenneth Graham's _The Wind in the Willows_ are not completely believable, and that _Dr. Dolittle_ is the first children's classic since _Alice_. (What about the works of E. Nesbit, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Beatrix Potter, or George MacDonald?) But if Walpole is wrong on his details, he is right about his main argument: _The Story of Doctor Dolittle_ is an honest-to-goodness classic of children's literature.
Source:
http://www.memeread.com/book/0786109467-the-story-of-dr-dolittle.html