Lucy and the Rocket Dog

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.