Primary Documents: Nicky Goes to the Doctor

Sorry, I skipped last week's post for the Fourth. But speaking of the Fourth, let's do some firsts. All holidays are thanksgivings, and on this one I recalled some lucky breaks, early on, including the first book I ever read.

The early 1970s were the heyday for America, for me, and for Richard Scarry. His books were the Biggest and Busiest and Best: huge spreads of messy activity for kids to look and look and look at. Even Nicky Goes to the Doctor, a minor work of reassuring propaganda and my first, opens with five pages of interracial mayhem:

But his best were the landscapes. An underrated landscapist, like George Orwell or Napoleon Bonaparte. The obvious example is his classic, What Do People Do All Day?

But his bestest was his Great Big Air Book:

Everyone is a worker! Richard Scarry, Nicky Goes to the Doctor, Golden Press, 1972. Richard Scarry, What Do People Do All Day, Random House, 1968, 90-91. Richard Scarry, Richard Scarry's Great Big Air Book, Random House, 1971, 52-53. Paul Johnson, Napoleon, Phoenix, 2003, 9, 23, 52, 125, 131. Robert Wellman Campbell, "Primary Documents: Nicky Goes to the Doctor," RSS Longa, 9 July 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.