Lucy and the Rocket Dog

May 1, 2017
Lucy must be a very intelligent girl, since she is able to build a rocket capable of traveling nearly the speed of light from stray parts--that then accidentally launches her hapless basset hound, Laika, into space.From that point, the tale alternates between Laika's strange adventures and Lucy's not especially commonplace life, as the white, science-focused girl learns to manage her grief over her lost dog and grows into a very clever astrophysicist. She's so clever that she wins the Nobel Prize for physics. Laika's adventures simply increase in strangeness, as she's rescued by doglike extraterrestrials in a bone-shaped spacecraft that passes through a wormhole on its way to Alpha Centauri. For Laika, time spins rapidly past. For Lucy, a lifetime goes by before they are miraculously reunited. The tale is told in often repetitive language that's reminiscent of Roald Dahl's style, with most sentences unvarying in structure. This somehow imparts a sense of fable rather than mere story, but this style has the potential to grow tedious and annoying. Saving it from tedium are Laika's delicious doggy enthusiasm, Arnaldo's evocative illustrations, the lovely, simple explanation of difficult concepts of space and time, and, of course, a very happy ending. For those who might enjoy a dog book, a science book, or just a good story. (Science fiction. 10-14)

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May 1, 2017

Gr 4-6-A lesson in relativity for both space enthusiasts and dog lovers. Improbable as it may seem, Lucy, a young British girl passionate about astronomy, builds a rocket ship in her backyard. She has named it Prototype I, as she assumes it will take her many iterations before she has an actual functioning rocket. Into the rocket one night clambers her likable but not very bright dog, Laika. Through a series of blunders, the dog launches the rocket. Lucy has programmed the rocket to travel at nearly the speed of light, so the chapters alternate between a bereft Lucy, who ages and grows up to become a Nobel Prize-winning astronomer, and Laika, who is away from her beloved human for only a few weeks. Readers are aware that Laika is adventuring in space while Lucy spends her life in a state of melancholy over Laika's fate. A satisfying deus ex machina brings the book to a happy ending, with the laws of physics obeyed. Though suspension of disbelief is required throughout the story, readers who have ever loved a dog and tinkerers who dream of leaving the prototype stage of design will enjoy this tale of friendship and improbable interstellar canine time-bending. VERDICT Infused with a tone of loss and longing for loved ones left behind, this novel may need help finding the right audience, but the theory of relativity is brought to life vividly.-John Scott, Friends School of Baltimore

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