BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS
(Print: 1957; 978-0330243759; Piccolo Books; 199 pp.)
(Digital: Yes.)
Audio: 1/22/2002; 978-0739349540; Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group; Duration 04:33:38 (6 parts); Unabridged.
(Film: Yes).

SERIES:
Yes, there was an animated series from 1997-1998.

CHARACTERS: (Not comprehensive)
Pongo – Mr. and Mrs. Dearly’s male Dalmatian dog
Misses (pronounced like Mrs.) – Pongo’s wife
Perdita – A wet nurse (dog)
Prince – Perdita’s husband
Nanny Cook – The Dearly’s cook
Nanny Butler – The Dearly’s butler
Mr. Dearly – Mrs. & Pongo’s pet male human
Mrs. Dearly – Mr. Dearly’s wife
Cruella De Vil – Mrs. Dearly’s former schoolmate whose menace begins for Pongo and Missis when they hear her comment on how she’d love to have a Dalmatian fur

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
When Pongo and Missis have 15 puppies, their pets, Mr. and Mrs. Dearly, on the advice of a veterinarian, set about trying to find a female dog who has recently had puppies to help with the feeding of their new family. Mrs. Dearly finds just such a dog on the side of the road who is so muddy and thin that much about her is a mystery. Meanwhile a neighbor, Cruella De Vil, who loves color opposites like red and green but especially black and white, since she was born with hair that is black on one side and white on the other, sees the adult dogs and decides a Dalmatian fur is just what she needs. Thus begins the danger and adventure of this tale. I’d seen the movie but never read the book. My husband and I decided to listen to the book after he noticed that the recent movie, Cruella De Vil, was “based on the book, ‘101 Dalmatians’”
Of course, we loved it!

AUTHOR:
Dorothy Gladys (Dodie) Smith (May 3, 1896 – November 24th, 1990). According to Wikipedia, Dodie “was an English novelist and playwright. She is best known for writing the children’s novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956). Other works include I Capture the Castle (1948), and The Starlight Barking (1967). The Hundred and One Dalmatians was adapted into a 1961 animated film and a 1996 live-action film, both produced by Disney. Her novel I Capture the Castle was adapted into a 2003 film version. I Capture the Castle was voted number 82 as "one of the nation's 100 best-loved novels" by the British public as part of the BBC's The Big Read (2003).[1]”

NARRATOR(S):
Martin Jarvis (August 4th, 1941) According to Wikipedia, Martin “is an English actor and a producer of radio drama.[1] Described by the BBC as "one of Britain's most distinguished and versatile actors",[2] he has had a varied career in theatre, film and television, and become particularly noted for radio acting and voicing audiobooks.”

GENRE:
Classic Literature, Juvenile Fiction

LOCATIONS:
London, Suffolk

TIME FRAME: unstated

SUBJECTS:
Dogs, Dalmatians, Cats, Cows, Horses, Animals

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From Chapter 1, “The Happy Couples”
“Not long ago, there lived in London a young married couple of Dalmatian dogs named Pongo and Missis Pongo. (Missis had added Pongo’s name to her own on their marriage, but was still called Missis by most people.) They were lucky enough to own a your married couple of humans named Mr. and Mrs. Dearly, who were gentle, obedient, and unusually intelligent—almost canine at times. They understood quite a number of barks: the barks for “Out, please!” “In, please!” “Hurry up with my dinner!” and “What about a walk?” And even when they could not understand, they could often guess—if looked at soulfully or scratched by an eager paw. Like many other much-loved humans, they believed that they owned their dogs, instead of realizing that their dogs owned them. Pongo and Missis found this touching and amusing and let their pets think it was true.”

RATING:
5 stars. How could it be anything less than 5 stars?

STARTED-FINISHED
7/9/2021-7/23/2021
( )

Adorable as expected ( )

I had been a fan of Dodie Smith's novel for (sort-of) adults, I CAPTURE THE CASTLE. And in grade school I remember reading THE STARLIGHT BARKING, the sequel to the famous 101 DALMATIANS. I also loved the movie when I was a kid; I must have been 10, since I see in Wikipedia that 1979 was the year of one of the theater re-issues. I remember going through a bit of a 'dog phase' afterwards.

But I don't believe I had ever read this, the original first book, till now. I was able to call out most of the changes that the movie made - such as getting rid of an entire dog (they upped the number of puppies to make 101). In the book the dog couple are named Pongo and Missis; and since Missis can't nurse 15 puppies, another dog, Perdita, is brought in to take on seven of them. The whole wet-nursing thing was probably deemed too graphic for Disney. They named the couple Pongo and Perdita, with no third dog brought in, and didn't go into how an animal with eight nipples could nurse 15 puppies. Which is all well enough! Anyway...

This book was written in 1956, by a woman, and I was startled by the sexism - yes, sexism, in Dogdom! Missis is kind of an airhead who literally can't tell her left paw from her right. Pongo is the leader, who figures out everything and has all the great ideas. I was raised on 1970s Girl Power. Girls were always the clever ones in fiction by the time I came along. Once the censors get a hold of this one, it's going to be Missis who is figuring everything out. Oh - also it's the GIRL puppies who are too weak to make the journey without riding in a cart. Not the later-born or weaker puppies - the girls. Craziness.

Back to the clever Pongo. Male chauvinism aside, he's a clever pooch, all right! When his 15 kids go missing, he knows what's going down. "All through the long December night, he put two and two together and made four. Once or twice he almost made five." For although he had little Latin beyond "Cave canem," "he had, as a young dog, devoured Shakespeare (in a tasty leather binding)."

I was honestly riveted by the climax, as our hundred dalmatians (only 100 at this point - there's a surprise twist at the end) are racing down a road with Cruella di Vil bearing down on them, with wire netting on either side of the road making escape impossible! Drat those humans and their fences!

All turns out well. ( )

I loved this book so much as a child. I can still recall laying in bed and reading a bedraggled paperback.

5/5 pup cups.

Mentions abuse of dogs, and uses the word “gypsies”. The ways the dogs might be killed. There is a child who is very unkind to the dogs.

Cruella DeVille definitely is evil and so are her henchmen. This not a story to just hand over but one to be discussed.

Is this a great book? Yes.

Is this a book with danger, sadness, action, heroism and villains? Yes. ( )

4.5 stars. I really enjoyed this on audio. The writing was clever and sweet. I love it that it was from the animals' viewpoint. My favorite example of this was when they stumbled upon a church and thought it must have been designed specifically for puppies, with a puppy bed in front of each seat. (I don't know if I really needed to hide that, but I didn't want to spoil the fun.

Oddly, I'd be hesitant recommend it to kids; I know when I was a child, I would have been horrified and possibly traumatized at the callousness of Cruella De Vil and her talk of the many different ways to kill the puppies for their fur, to say nothing of all the kittens she bragged of drowning. I might just have to limit my recommendations to the adults I know who love children's books. ( )