Dogteam

October 2, 1995
The Newbery Honor author, a two-time participant in the Iditarod, describes the thrill of a winter's night run with a team of sled dogs. Ages 4-8.

October 1, 1993
K-Gr 3-There are few things more beautiful than a moonlit winter night, and Paulsen has captured that, plus the thrill of speeding across the snow via dogsled, in a text as crisp, clean, and magical as such evenings. It is the dogs' emotions, as much as the narrator's, that are evoked: the animals strain at their harnesses, singing in anticipation of the run. Ruth Wright Paulsen's illustrations show the nuances of canine behavior in the positions of ears, tails, lolling tongues, and flashing paws. The swift, strong, smiling creatures are one with the white and blue-black night; on one double-page spread, the aurora borealis in ghostly greens is their background. Dogteam reads aloud beautifully, but its poetry will be best understood through one-on-one sharing with an adult. All who see and hear it will, for a few moments, join in the winter run. Children who live in areas without snow will experience the wonder of its season through this book. For those living in cold climates, it may inspire a nighttime ski, or skate, or at least a moonlit walk, and they will understand the dogs' dilemma: although it is comforting to come home to warmth and firelight, something in them yearns to run forever.-Carla Kozak, San Francisco Public Library

November 15, 1993
Ages 4-7. As Paulsen takes his dog sled for a run on a winter's night, he carries readers along through the moonlit landscape. Immediacy and brevity mark each part of the poetic telling of the adventure--harnessing the exuberant dogs, riding through the woods and across a frozen lake, watching the wolves silently appear and disappear, and returning home. The illustrations include pen-and-ink drawings of the dogs, the sled, and sometimes the driver, tinted with watercolor and set against watercolor backgrounds. The painting is more effective than the pen-and-ink work, and the two art styles don't always blend well. As a whole, however, the book re-creates an experience unusual in picture books. Teachers might try reading it to children who consider themselves too old for picture books, particularly those who know Paulsen's other work. ((Reviewed Nov. 15, 1993))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1993, American Library Association.)

August 30, 1993
The distinguished author of Dogsong and Hatchet somewhat strains for effect in this prose poem describing a night run with a team of dogs. Each stanza begins with a kind of chapter heading (``The dance,'' ``Into the night,'' etc.) that signals the oncoming sights and sounds amid the eerie glacial expanses. Gary Paulsen's rhythms mimic the panting, brisk pace of the running dogs, as in the description of the wolves they encounter: ``they run with us, pace the dogs, pace our hearts and our lives and then turn, turn away in the blue dark.'' The technique, however, is easily overdone: ``Away from camp, away from people, away from houses and light and noise and into only the one thing, into only winternight they fly away and away and away.'' Ruth Wright Paulsen's dogs look illuminated from within, rendered as they are in bright grays and yellows with detailed pen and ink, contrasting sharply with the soft, spare background. The landscape, on the other hand, remains impenetrable, no more likely to envelop the reader than is the highly personal text. Only in the crisp, poetic prose of an endnote does Paulsen--who has twice raced in the Iditarod--finally convey his exhilaration. All ages.

January 1, 1993
Gary Paulsen's interest in dogsledding finds expression in this poetic description of a nighttime run. Various depictions of the seven dogs dominate the pen drawings and dark-blue watercolor night. The energy and movement of the piece pull the reader right along through the race to the homeward finish.

(Copyright 1993 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)