bookshelf

DOGS IN SPACE

Name: DOGS IN SPACE
Author: Vix Southgate
ISBN: 978-1-61067-824-7

by Vix Southgate ; illustrated by Iris Deppe ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2019

Quibbles aside, a space achievement well worth commemorating, with a less tragic outcome than Laika’s mission.

bookshelf

Two canine cosmonauts make history.

Not to be confused with Nancy Coffelt’s 1993 storytime staple of the same name, this look back to the space race’s early years follows the careers of Soviet “space dogs” Belka and Strelka—the first living creatures to survive a journey into orbit. With considerable embroidery, Southgate describes in some detail how the two strays were enticed off the Moscow streets, carefully tested and trained for their 1960 flight, monitored through multiple orbits, then brought back to Earth to become world celebrities. Along with giving the dogs anthropomorphic smiles, Deppe adds fanciful details, such as bubble helmets for both, and makes no effort to depict the Sputnik 5 spacecraft accurately. Still, the flat, bright images of blastoff and the use of headlines and poster type add plenty of visual drama, and as they take their star turns the two space travelers positively glow with doggy personality throughout. The fact that Belka and Strelka were actually accompanied by a large menagerie of rodents and other creatures is relegated to a comment in one of the two closing timelines, where the fates of the “more than 50 dogs” launched into space before Belka and Strelka also go unmentioned.

Quibbles aside, a space achievement well worth commemorating, with a less tragic outcome than Laika’s mission. (Informational picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: March 1, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-61067-824-7

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Kane Miller

Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

bookshelf

THE GIRL WHO LOVED WILD HORSES

by Paul Goble ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1978

bookshelf

There are many parallel legends – the seal women, for example, with their strange sad longings – but none is more direct than this American Indian story of a girl who is carried away in a horses’ stampede…to ride thenceforth by the side of a beautiful stallion who leads the wild horses. The girl had always loved horses, and seemed to understand them “in a special way”; a year after her disappearance her people find her riding beside the stallion, calf in tow, and take her home despite his strong resistance. But she is unhappy and returns to the stallion; after that, a beautiful mare is seen riding always beside him. Goble tells the story soberly, allowing it to settle, to find its own level. The illustrations are in the familiar striking Goble style, but softened out here and there with masses of flowers and foliage – suitable perhaps for the switch in subject matter from war to love, but we miss the spanking clean design of Custer’s Last Battle and The Fetterman Fight. 6-7

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1978

ISBN: 0689845049

Page Count: -

Publisher: Bradbury

Review Posted Online: April 26, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
RED CLOUD'S WAR
by Paul Goble ; illustrated by Paul Goble ; introduction by Robert Lewis

- BOOK REVIEW
ALL OUR RELATIVES
by Paul Goble & illustrated by Paul Goble

- BOOK REVIEW
SONG OF CREATION
by Paul Goble & illustrated by Paul Goble

bookshelf

THOSE BUILDING MEN

by Angela Johnson & illustrated by Barry Moser ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2001

bookshelf

Vague text and anemic pictures make this at best a half-hearted tribute to the construction workers of the last century or so. In her brief, poetic text Johnson writes of “those shadowy building men . . . moving the earth to connect water,” of “railroad workers . . . who were there to connect all.” She continues: “As buildings tower above us / they tell the tales / of the cities . . . They whisper down past it all and say, / ‘They built us, your fathers . . .’ ” There is little here to engage child readers, either intellectually or emotionally, and Moser’s remote, indistinct portraits of ordinary-looking men (only men) dressed in sturdy working clothes and, mostly, at rest, only intermittently capture any sense of individual or collective effort. In evident recognition of these inadequacies, a prose afterword has been added to explain what the book is about—a superfluous feature had Moser and Johnson produced work up to their usual standards. Let readers spend time more profitably with the likes of John Henry or Mike Mulligan. (Picture book. 6-8)