I remember the delight with which some six months ago I picked up the first "Dolittle" book in the Hampshire bookshop at Smith College in Northampton.
One of Mr. Lofting's pictures was quite enough for me.
The picture that I lighted upon when I first opened the book was the one of the monkeys making a chain with their arms across the gulf.
Then I looked further and discovered Bumpo reading fairy stories to himself.
And then looked again and there was a picture of John Dolittle's house.
But pictures are not enough although most authors draw so badly that if one of them happens to have the genius for line that Mr. Lofting shows there must be, one feels, something in his writing as well.
There is.
You cannot read the first paragraph of the book, which begins in the right way "Once upon a time" without knowing that Mr. Lofting believes in his story quite as much as he expects you to.
That is the first essential for a story teller.
Then you discover as you read on that he has the right eye for the right detail.