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BALTO AND TOGO

Name: BALTO AND TOGO
Author: Helen Moss
ISBN: 9781250792532

HERO DOGS OF ALASKA

by Helen Moss ; illustrated by Solomon Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 28, 2023

True to life and compellingly dramatic.

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The historic sled dog “Serum Run” was undertaken to prevent a diphtheria epidemic in Nome, Alaska.

Inventing minor details as needed to construct a seamless narrative while sticking closely to participants’ memoirs and other documentary evidence, Moss recounts each leg of the nearly 700-mile relay—capturing both its urgency and the serious dangers faced by the 19 teams of dogs and men who undertook it. Exerting authorial license around a claim that the “malamute chorus,” a sort of canine news and social network that even worked over long distances, was a real Alaska thing, she tells the tale from doggy as well as human points of view by weaving in engaging exchanges of canine banter: “I can feel it in my bones—we’re headed for Norton Bay. I know that Togo here loves the sea ice, but it gives me the heebie-jeebies.” Still, nearly every member of the cast, two- or four-legged, was real, as were the extreme cold, severe winds, blinding snow fog, and other obstacles faced by the tough dogs and rugged-looking, fur-clad men in Hughes’ stark black-and-white illustrations. The disease claimed one child identified as Inupiaq/Norwegian, and one musher was part Athabascan; otherwise the human cast reads as white.

True to life and compellingly dramatic. (afterword, source list, end notes) (Fictionalized nonfiction. 10-13)

Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2023

ISBN: 9781250792532

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Godwin Books

Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
BALTO AND THE RACE AGAINST TIME
by Helen Moss ; illustrated by Misa Saburi

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HOW TO SPEAK DOLPHIN

by Ginny Rorby ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 26, 2015

Dolphin lovers will appreciate this look at our complicated relationship with these marine mammals.

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Is dolphin-assisted therapy so beneficial to patients that it’s worth keeping a wild dolphin captive?

Twelve-year-old Lily has lived with her emotionally distant oncologist stepfather and a succession of nannies since her mother died in a car accident two years ago. Nannies leave because of the difficulty of caring for Adam, Lily’s severely autistic 4-year-old half brother. The newest, Suzanne, seems promising, but Lily is tired of feeling like a planet orbiting the sun Adam. When she meets blind Zoe, who will attend the same private middle school as Lily in the fall, Lily’s happy to have a friend. However, Zoe’s take on the plight of the captive dolphin, Nori, used in Adam’s therapy opens Lily’s eyes. She knows she must use her influence over her stepfather, who is consulting on Nori’s treatment for cancer (caused by an oil spill), to free the animal. Lily’s got several fine lines to walk, as she works to hold onto her new friend, convince her stepfather of the rightness of releasing Nori, and do what’s best for Adam. In her newest exploration of animal-human relationships, Rorby’s lonely, mature heroine faces tough but realistic situations. Siblings of children on the spectrum will identify with Lily. If the tale flirts with sentimentality and some of the characters are strident in their views, the whole never feels maudlin or didactic.

Dolphin lovers will appreciate this look at our complicated relationship with these marine mammals. (Fiction. 10-13)

Pub Date: May 26, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-545-67605-2

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
FREEING FINCH
by Ginny Rorby

- BOOK REVIEW
LOST IN THE RIVER OF GRASS
by Ginny Rorby

- BOOK REVIEW
THE OUTSIDE OF A HORSE
by Ginny Rorby

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INTO THE FIRE

From the Westfallen series , Vol. 2

by Ann Brashares & Ben Brashares ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 16, 2025

Fast-moving but let down by questionable omissions.

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The efforts of six New Jersey kids to prevent the Nazis from winning World War II continue in this sequel to Westfallen (2024).

In 1944, Alice, Lawrence, and Artie struggle to correct their catastrophic error that, as Alice repeatedly has it, “DESTROYED THE FUTURE.” In 2023, Frances and Henry desperately research the changed history that finds the U.S. transformed into the Nazi-controlled tributary state of Westfallen. Jewish Lukas is largely confined, unable to help them or reach the magic shed that houses the radio that allows the kids to communicate across time, putting him at risk of losing his memories. Meanwhile, in 1944, Lawrence collects scrap metal alongside a kid who grows up to be a patient in the Home for Incurables, where Henry works in 2023. Could that kid hold the key to restoring the timeline? In this volume, Lawrence and Frances join Alice and Henry as first-person narrators, depriving Lukas and Artie of narrative agency. This lack is particularly distressing in Lukas’ case, as his isolation is affecting his personality. It falls to Henry and Alice to prod him into action—which is unfortunate for a novel that never names the Holocaust and omits persecution of the Jews from Alice’s father’s explanation of Nazi ideology (although antisemitism is an obvious feature of life in this alternate timeline). The crackling pace can’t obscure these lapses. Alice, Artie, and Frances are white, Lawrence is Black, and biracial Henry is Black and white.

Fast-moving but let down by questionable omissions. (Science fiction/thriller. 10-13)