Answer: The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (1923), by Hugh Lofting.
Reason: My parents read me the Doctor Dolittle books when I was five. To me they were not stories as much as dispatches from a world I craved: a world of wanderlust, talking animals, and subversive kindness (because let’s face it—the Doctor is both a sweetheart and an anarchist).
—Laura Amy Schlitz,
winner of the 2008 Newbery Medal for
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village
[...] The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting (1923) b) Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski (1946) c) Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson [...]