Owney, a scruffy little stray mutt, wanders into the Albany post office in 1889, wins the hearts of the postal workers and becomes their mascot, riding the mail wagon to and from the train station. As predicted, the clever and curious Owney jumps aboard the train one day and travels alongside the mailbags to cities within the U.S. and beyond, reaching post office destinations in the Far and Middle East. Basing her story on the real canine’s peripatetic life, Kelly has gleaned information from the dog tags created and collected by the various mail clerks around the country to invent a series of letters, postcards and newspaper articles. Using a liberal variety of fonts and writing styles alongside her bright, mixed-media drawings, she develops a kaleidoscopic story of Owney’s adventures, imagining the heroic mutt sightseeing and visiting landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty in New York and the Pyramids in Egypt. The unorthodox format is well suited to spark interest in other imaginative journeys and to reading and writing about other parts of the world both in and out of the classroom. (author’s note) (Picture book. 6-8)
