How It Was with Dooms

{{Infobox book

| name = How It Was with Dooms

| image = How It Was with Dooms.jpg

| author = Carol Cawthra Hopcraft
Xan Hopcraft

| title_orig =

| translator =

| illustrator =

| cover_artist =

| country = United States

| language = English

| series =

| subject =

| genre = Children's novel

| publisher = Margaret K. McElderry

| pub_date = 1997

| media_type = Print (hardcover)

| pages = 64 (first edition)

| isbn = 0-689-81091-1

| oclc = 34190718

| dewey = 599.74/428

| congress = QL737.C23 H655 1997

}}

How It Was with Dooms is a children's book dictated to Carol Cawthra Hopcraft by her young son Xan Hopcraft. It tells the true story of the young boy's friendship with an orphaned cheetah on the family's game ranch in Kenya. Carol Hopcraft, a wildlife photographer, provided photographs for the book, while her son provided illustrations. It was published in 1997 by Margaret K. McElderry, a division of Simon & Schuster. (64 pages, {{ISBN|0-689-81091-1}}){{cite web|url=http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/199711/natural.asp|title=- Sierra Club|website=www.sierraclub.org}}{{cite web|url=http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Xan-Hopcraft/1812357|title=Xan Hopcraft|website=Simon & Schuster}}{{cite news| url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_n11_v106/ai_20384231/ | work=Natural History | title=How It Was with Dooms: A True Story from Africa | year=1997}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u-gCAAAAMBAJ&q=%22how+it+was+with+dooms%22&pg=PA119|year=1997|isbn=0-689-81091-1|title=How It Was with Dooms|publisher=Margaret K. McElderry}}

The book was loosely adapted into a film in 2005, under the title Duma.{{cite news| url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/288763/Duma/overview | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071109225352/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/288763/Duma/overview | url-status=dead | archive-date=2007-11-09 |title=Duma (2005)| first=Manohla | department=Movies & TV Dept. | work=The New York Times | date=2007 | last=Dargis}}{{cite news| url=https://movies.nytimes.com/2005/09/30/movies/30duma.html?_r=1 | work=The New York Times | first=Manohla | last=Dargis | title=Inching Toward Adulthood With a Cheetah for a Friend | date=30 September 2005}}