What Has Four Wheels and Flies
first edition Hardcover
1959 · New York
by Wallop, Douglass
New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 1959. First Edition. Hardcover. Good+ (Clean and tight but with mild foxing to page fore edges when closed, not affecting faces. General shelf wear and age toning to covers and shelf wear/a bit of chipping to dj. No tears.. Yellow boards. Black lettering and image on spine. Multi-colored dj with cover illus. of dog. 192 pp. No illus. A fanciful flight, tuned into 1965, and the need for new customers for cars, this carries through the plan that Hobbs, an English Bull, puts through to teach dogs to become drivers. At a training center, Hank, the Irish Setter, loses his heart to Ida, the French Poodle (whose problems only Kenneth, a German Shepherd with psychiatric background, can solve), strives for his license so he can help his widowed owner, and becomes aware of the influence that cars can have. He finds that they become an instrument for expressing hostility, that the prestige of various makes affects the driver, that, in developing their reflexes in learning to drive, dogs act just like humans, and that speed becomes their obsession. In spite of flubbing their test by humans the dogs are permitted to take to the road -- but the Labor Day traffic sends them to the hideaway-tails between their legs. A parable that has valid targets, this, with its Animal Farm inheritance, avoids stepping too harshly on tender paws. - Kirkus Review. (Inventory #: 156092)