Dominic: A Picture Book - Softcover

Steig, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312371446 ISBN 13: 9780312371449

Verlag: SQUARE FISH, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

Dear Friends,
I am leaving in rather a hurry to see more of the world, so I have no time to say goodbye to you individually. I embrace you all and sniff you with love. I don't know when I'll be back. But back I will be.
Dominic

It's time for a change, so Dominic packs his collection of hats and his piccolo and heads out, letting the world take him where it may. When Dominic encounters members of the Doomsday Gang, he easily foils their attempt to rob him. Legend of his victory quickly spreads, and each new friend Dominic meets tells him a story of their own less-fortunate meeting with the villains, and asks for help from the heroic dog. But can one lone dog bring down an entire band of hooligans?

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

William Steig (1907-2003) was a cartoonist, illustrator and author of award-winning books for children, including Shrek!, on which the DreamWorks movies are based; the Caldecott Medal-winner Sylvester and the Magic Pebble; The Caldecott Honor book The Amazing Bone; and the Newbury Honor Books Abel's Island and Doctor De Soto. Stieg also published thirteen collections of drawings for adults, including The Lonely Ones, Male/Female, and Our Miserable Life.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Dominic

By William Steig

Macmillan

Copyright © 1972 William Steig
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-312-37144-9

CHAPTER 1

Dominic was a lively one, always up to something. One day, more restless than usual, he decided there wasn't enough going on in his own neighborhood to satisfy his need for adventure. He just had to get away.

He owned an assortment of hats which he liked to wear, not for warmth or for shade or to shield him from rain, but for their various effects — rakish, dashing, solemn, or martial. He packed them, together with his precious piccolo and a few other things, in a large bandanna which he tied to the end of a stick so it could be carried easily over a shoulder.

Too impatient to dash around saying goodbye to everyone, he hammered this note to his door: "Dear Friends, I am leaving in rather a hurry to see more of the world, so I have no time to say goodbye to you individually. I embrace you all and sniff you with love. I don't know when I'll be back. But back I will be. Dominic."

He locked the door, buried the key, and left home to seek his fortune — that is, to look for whatever it was that was going to happen to him out there in the unknown world.

He took the highroad going east so he could greet the sunrise as soon as it arrived, and also the nightfall. But he didn't travel in a straight line. He was forever leaving the road, coming back to it and leaving it again, investigating the source of every smell and sound, every sight that intrigued him. Nothing escaped his ardent attention.

On the second day of his journey, he reached a fork in the road and he wondered whether to go the way that veered off to the left or the one that curved over to the right. He would have been happy to go both ways at once. Since that was impossible, he flipped a coin — heads for the left, tails for the right. It fell on tails, so he chased his own tail three times around and took the road that curved over to the right.

By and by, there was an exceptional smell, one he had never encountered before, and hurrying toward it, as he always hurried toward every development, he came to another fork in the road, and there a witch-alligator stood, resting on a cane and looking as if she had been expecting him.

Dominic had never seen a witch-alligator. Though all smells engaged his interest, he wasn't sure he liked her particular one, and it seemed to him that she had many more teeth than were necessary for any ordinary dental purpose. Still, he greeted her in his usual high-spirited way: "Good morning! Happy day to us all!"

"Good morning to you," said the witch. "Do you know where you're going?" "Not at all," Dominic said with a laugh. "I'm going wherever my fortune tells me to go."

"And would you like to know your fortune?" the witch asked, adjusting the fringes on her shawl. "I can see the future just as clearly as I see the present and more clearly than I can recall the past. For twenty-five cents I'll reveal your immediate prospects — what is in store for you during the next few days. For half a dollar I'll describe the next full year of your life. For a dollar you can have your complete history, unexpurgated, from now to the finish."

Dominic thought a moment. Curious as he was about everything, especially everything concerning himself, he preferred to do his own learning. "I'm certainly interested in my fortune," he said. "Yet I think it would be much more fun to find out what happens when it happens. I like to be taken by surprise."

"Well," said the witch, "I know everything that's going to happen to you." Then she remarked that Dominic was unusually wise for so young a dog and offered him a bit of information. "I hope you don't mind if I tell you this much," she said. "That road there on the right goes nowhere. There's not a bit of magic up that road, no adventure, no surprise, nothing to discover or wonder at. Even the scenery is humdrum. You'd soon grow much too introspective. You'd take to daydreaming and tail-twiddling, get absent-minded and lazy, forget where you are and what you're about, sleep more than one should, and be wretchedly bored. Furthermore, after a while, you'd reach a dead end and you'd have to come all that dreary way back to right here where we're standing now, only it wouldn't be now, it would be some woefully wasted time later.

"Now this road, the one on the left," she said, her heavy eyes glowing, "this road keeps right on going, as far as anyone cares to go, and if you take it, believe me, you'll never find yourself wondering what you might have missed by not taking the other. Up this road, which looks the same at the beginning, but is really ever so different, things will happen that you never could have guessed at — marvelous, unbelievable things. Up this way is where adventure is. I'm pretty sure I know which way you'll go." And she smiled, exposing all eighty teeth.

Dominic feverishly opened his big, polka-dotted bandanna, pulled out some sardines, and gave them to the witch, who consumed them in a gulp. He thanked her for her good advice and went hightailing it up the road to the left, the road to adventure.

CHAPTER 2

The adventure road started out through a shady wood. On both sides the trees stood tall and solemn. The light glowed greenly through their leaves as if through stained-glass windows in a church. Dominic walked along in silence, smelling all the wonderful forest odors, alert to every new one, his nostrils quivering with delight. He smelled damp earth, mushrooms, dried leaves, violets, mint, spruce, rotting wood, animal droppings, forget-me-nots, and mold, and he savored all of it. The odors came as single notes, or percussion shots, or fused together in wonderful harmonies. Dominic was inspired to take out his piccolo and play. He invented a melody which he decided should be called "The Psalm of Sweet Smells."

Presently he came to a quiet pond. Putting away his piccolo, he reconnoitered the grassy bank, investigating various plants, pebbles, and anthills, and then sat down to enjoy some lunch. Scarcely had he wolfed a couple of sardines than the smooth surface of the pond before him ruffled and there was a huge catfish regarding him with unblinking eyes.

"You're Dominic," the catfish said.

Dominic was aquiver with attention. "Yes, I'm Dominic," he admitted. "Who are you?"

"I can't tell you my name," said the catfish. "But I have something for you. I've been waiting for you to pass by so I could give it to you." And he held forth out of the water a long, sharp spear. "You're going to need this," he said. "This fine-edged spear will make you invincible in serious combat. That is, if you use it rightly."

"What is 'using it rightly'?" Dominic asked, accepting the spear.

"Using it rightly," said the fish, "is using it with such skill that no one can best you."

"I see," said Dominic. "Thank you very much."

"You needn't thank me," said the fish. "I'm acting on orders." And he disappeared, leaving behind a small ripple that also disappeared.

Dominic never did find out whose orders the catfish was acting on. He speculated that it was the witch.

Remembering the fish, he felt guilty for having eaten sardines. But he quickly got over it and ate another. He discarded the stick that had served to carry his bandanna and replaced it with the spear. Then he put on his Royal Fusiliers hat and continued on his way.

In not many minutes, proving that the witch had been correct when she said there would be action along this road, he fell into a deep hole. He looked up from the bottom. And, proving that the catfish had been right when...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: SQUARE FISH
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2007
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0312371446
• ISBN 13: 9780312371449
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Zeichner: Steig William
• Anzahl der Seiten: 145
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar