FOR LAIKA

A fictionalized account of “the first living creature to travel the Earth’s orbit.”

Picked up as a stray on the streets of Moscow, Laika the dog was part of the earliest space-travel experiments in the former Soviet Union. Distinguishing her from the city’s other stray dogs, Ching renders Laika in blue, like the heavens; their artwork evokes Maira Kalman’s style, with decorative embellishments. While stopping short of full anthropomorphism in the expressive illustrations, this story personifies Laika to the extent that readers are given access to her inner thoughts and feelings. It goes so far as to give her agency over her fate as it imagines her emotional motivations for wanting to participate in the Soviet space program: Told by an older dog that the stars are the spirits of orphaned canines who died, Laika hopes that she might find her unknown parents. While this approach may provide potential comfort to human readers who understand the narrative’s oblique indication of Laika’s death during the experimental voyage, it may also alienate others, who could regard it as manipulative at best or dishonest at worst. Excellent backmatter includes an author’s statement that addresses such concerns while also providing a discussion guide to help readers consider the ethics of this particular experiment and of others using animals, as well. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A thoughtful if idealized imaginative exercise in fiction.