Laika

Educational, emotional, dramatic. Also beautiful. Graphic novel format really works here: It can convey things a text-only book or video can't.

the story of Laika has so much to teach us - about the way progress depends upon violence, about the way we exploit others for our own goals, about the way individuals who are oppressed by a political system participate in the oppression of others, about who we consider "expendable" in the name of our own achievements - and this graphic novel brings that all to life in a way that is touching and illuminating without being schmaltzy.

Nick Abadzis interweaves narrative and history very skillfully in his work Laika, throwing light with dazzling artwork upon the interactions between dog and dog-handler; dog and dog-catcher; the vastness of space and mankind; Soviet Union Premier and ordinary citizen. At once it is a simple tale of a good-natured stray dog from Moscow, which would become known to the world as Laika, as well as an intricate account detailing the almost manic race to reach space. It is also a tale of office politics and intrigue, where we see the clashes between the decent Oleg Gazenko and the bullish Sergei Korolev (both real figures from history). And Laika is at the center of it all, representing the fragility of life in the vastness of space. Abadzis gives voice to Laika and to this age. A good read.

This is a beautiful, heartbreaking book, as much about the powerful trust that animals place in us as caregivers as it is about the early days of the Russian space program. It's also about political dissidents in communist Russia, and the struggle we all face between our duty to ourselves and our duty to a higher calling (in this case, the communist party), and a hundred other things. Read this at home if you're disinclined to public displays of emotion.

Dead dog books used to be a dime a dozen. Time was a kid couldn't walk into a bookstore without getting whacked over the head with Old Yeller, creamed in the kisser by Sounder, and roughed up royally by Where the Red Fern Grows. Recently, however, dogs don't die as often as all that. You could probably concoct some magnificent sociological explanation for this, citing changes in the political and emotional landscape of our great nation leading to the decrease in deceased literary pups, but as I see it, a good dead dog story is as hard to write as an original paper on Moby Dick. What else is there to say? Man's best friend dies and everyone feels bad. In this jaded culture it would take a pretty steady hand to find a way to write a dead dog tale that touches us deeply. Not a dog person myself, I direct your attention today to Nick Abadzis. I don't know how he did it. Laika, the world's most famous real dead dog (a close second: the dead pooch of Pompeii), is now presented to us in a graphic novel format. Though I prefer cats through and through, "Laika" the novel grabs your heart from your chest and proceeds to dance a tarantella on the remains. The best graphic novels are those books whose stories couldn't have been told any other way. "Laika" has that honor. Her story was more than just her own. It encapsulated a vast range of people, many of whom you may have never heard of. As the book begins we see a man named Korolev leaving a Russian gulag in a freezing night. Eighteen years later, he is the Chief Designer of Sputnik and his success is without measure. Buoyed by the success of the successful launch, Khruschev demands that his space program launch a second orbital vehicle within a single month. Enter Laika. An unwanted pup, abused and abandoned on the street, she's eventually caught and taken to the Institute of Aviation Medicine. There she is one of many dogs, trained for flight travel. Laika bonds immediately with her caretaker Yelena Alexandrovna Dubrovsky and endears herself to the other scientists as well. As it stands, however, no dog is better suited for space travel and Laika is slated to make a trip from which she will never return. Abadzis deftly describes the people who care for the little dog and the process by which she was ultimately abandoned and killed by both science and Cold War mechanics. I admit it. You'd think that at this point I'd have learned to trust the First Second imprint of Roaring Brook Press. In the past two years they've managed to churn out consistently engaging, entertaining, fascinating graphic novels. But when I heard that they were doing "Laika" I was incredulous. You work as a children's librarian long enough and you see far too many complex issues simplified and sad stories made light, all in the name of the kiddies. I looked at "Laika" and wondered whether or not the book would even touch on her death. I thought to myself that maybe the author would put it in an Afterword