Laika: Astronaut Dog - Hardcover

Owen Davey’s first book, Foxly’s Feast, was Highly Commended by the Macmillan Children’s Book prize. His second title, the bedtime book Night Knight, was praised in The New York Times as, “Simple, sweet, and bound to induce sleep.” He lives in England.

In this sweet fact-fiction mix of a picture book, Davey tells the story of Laika. Who could have guessed that the homeless wanderer of Moscow would one day have statues built in her honor? In 1957, Laika, a nameless, ownerless doggie, roams the Moscow streets. A man sees her and decides she would be the perfect dog to train to travel to space in Sputnik 2. The biggest blur between fact and fiction occurs when Davey changes the ending of the story. Sputnik 2, of course, malfunctions and is lost; but Davey gives Laika the ending she deserved: a forever home with a group of aliens—“a loving family that she had always dreamed of finding.” The highly geometrical digital artwork will please fellow illustrators, though it will not always scan for young readers. Educators might consider this as a supplement to the many informational books about the 1950s space race, while teens might move on to Nick Abadzis’ graphic novel Laika (2007). Grades K-3. --J. B. Petty