THE DOGS OF WINTER- Bobbie Pyron

That crazy time of the school year, when everything moves at warp speed, and the paperwork seems to multiply every night. I am still trying to read, at least a little. This weekend, I finished Bobbie Pyron's 'THE DOGS OF WINTER. This story is set in Russia, in the late 1990's. The Soviet regime had fallen, typical support agencies had collapsed, and people were living in dire poverty, with little support from the government. Many children (perhaps even two million), lived alone and uncared for  on the streets of Russia.

THE DOGS OF WINTER is loosely based on the life of one of those children, Ivan Mishukov. Ivan is very young, only about four, when his beloved grandmother dies. His mother becomes involved with an unscrupulous man and then disappears. The man attempts to take Ivan to an orphanage, but the boy escapes, and turns to life on the streets, where he is taken in by a pack of wild dogs. DOGS OF WINTER chronicles Ivan's life with the dogs.

A survival story sure to be enjoyed by any dog lover.