Ice Dogs by Terry Lynn Johnson

Ice Dogs by Terry Lynn Johnson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Brrr! It's cold in here! There must be some ice dogs in the atmosphere! Ha! Seriously, what a great story! Vicky is a young musher who lost her Dad down an icy river. Her Dad was her hero and his loss really put a strain on the relationship between Vicky and her Mom. One day Vicky had decided to hook up the team and take a short trip to a neighbor's house to look at some of his dogs. Along the way, Vicky runs into a hottie her age who ran his snowmobile straight into a tree. Chris is new, Canadian, cute and clueless. The Alaskan wilderness is a bit foreign to him, but with eagerness and a quick wit, he's willing to learn. He must learn quickly too because their lives depend on each other. Vicky collects Chris' crumpled frame into the sled and realizes not soon enough that he is too dazed to correctly tell her where he lives and now they're lost.

I know as much about dog sledding as I do about physics. This story was totally out of my knowledge base, but I can rate it as the biggest surprise of 2015! Judging (and I know I shouldn't) from the cover (which is gorgeous by the way), I assumed that this was an animal story. Oh boy was I wrong! I can't stand animal stories. There are animals in Ice Dogs, but there's more to it than just the pups. Ice Dogs was about survival. It was about coming to terms with death. It was about taking care of relationships instead of pushing the world away. The characters portrayed realistically whereas Vicky wasn't Super Girl, but struggling and concerned and heavy with the burden of responsibility for both her dogs and Chris. Chris began as shallow, but developed a depth to him as he learned more about Vicky and her dogs. Although I know absolutely nothing about dog sledding, I don't think it detracted from the story and I did learn a bit. "Ice Dogs" by Terry Lynn Johnson is a good read that's full of fast-paced action and adventure. I think it's a great book for middle school and maybe 5th grade.

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