THE DOGS OF WINTER Launch Party!

Waiting to speak

Me and Ivan

This past Saturday was the official birth-day party for my new book, The Dogs of  Winter! As with A Dog's Way Home, the launch party was hosted by The King's English Bookshop, the best little indie bookstore in the West. Even though it was a gorgeous fall day and a holiday weekend (Columbus Day, or as I like to call it Rape And Pillage the Local Peoples Day), friends turned out to help me celebrate the release of a book that was a long time in coming.

I talked for about a half hour about the "story behind the story" of The Dogs of Winter. And I also told the crowd about my personal journey with Ivan Mishukov's story. I saw a few people in the audience wiping at their eyes. Of course, it could have been allergies...

Signing my heart out

Cake!

Then came the signing and cake! The King's English always does an amazing job with the cakes. They're not only beautiful but entirely delicious. This one had a scrumptious blueberry filling. Of course, I was so busy signing books, I didn't get a piece until the end. But my husband assures me he ate an extra one for me.

A whole stack of special orders!

If you missed the party but would still like a signed copy of The Dogs of  Winter, you can order one from The King's English Bookshop. Just indicate in the message field that you'd like a signed copy. They'll get it off in the mail to you toot sweet!

THE DOGS OF WINTER: Chapter 1

My new book, The Dogs of Winter, comes out one week from 
today. I thought I'd give everyone a taste of the book my letting you read here the first chapter:

 Chapter 1: Dreams

I dream of dogs. I dream of warm, soft backs pressed against mine, their deep musky smell a comfort on long, bitter nights. I dream of wet tongues, flashing teeth, warm noses, and knowing eyes, watching. Always watching.

Sometimes I dream we are running, the dogs and I, through empty streets and deserted parks. We run for the joy and freedom    in it, never tiring, never hungry. And then, great wings unfold from their backs, spreading wide and lifting the dogs above me. I cry out, begging them to come back, to take pity on this earth-bound boy.

It has been many years since I lived with the dogs, but still I dream. I do not dream of the long winter nights on the streets of Russia; seldom do I dream of the things that drove me from my home. My dreams begin and end with the dogs.

The Dogs of Winter: The story behind the story

As most of you know, I have a new book coming out October first. The book is called, The Dogs of Winter, and it's being published by Arthur A. Levine Books (Scholastic), and edited by The Man himself! I'll be blogging about this book a bit over the next five weeks, but I thought what I'd do in this first blog is tell you the "story behind the story."

My book is based on a real child named Ivan Mishukov, and two amazing, heartbreaking, and ultimately (for me) inspiring years in his young life. Ivan, like tens of thousand of other children, found himself abandoned to the streets of Moscow in the mid 1990s. Yes, I said the 1990s, not the early part of the 20th century! When the Soviet Union fell in the early 1990s, the socio-economic impact on the people of Russia was devastating. Families who were barely hanging on by a thread suddenly found themselves without any kind of safety net. Yes, there had been food shortages and the infamous food lines when the Soviet Union was still in tact, but rent was controlled (by the government) to a minimal charge, health care was free, and pensions existed. All of that, plus much more, went away within just a few short years. By the mid 1990s there were an estimated 80,000 to 1 million children and teens living homeless on the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg. The vast majority of these children were considered "social orphans." They had at least one living parent. At the same time, dogs were abandoned to the streets to fend for themselves as well. Anything that required money for food, shelter and care was abandoned to the streets.

Ivan Mishukov, 1998

Most of these homeless children lived in the extensive (and elegant) underground train stations in Moscow. There, they would form packs (often lorded over by an older teen or adult) and beg, steal, and forage for food, alcohol, and drugs. They became as ever-present and invisible as the cold. They were often exploited and harmed by adults, even the police. Ivan's young age did not set him apart from the other children. Many of these "orphans" were under the age of ten. Ivan was four when he ended up on the streets. What did set him apart was the fact that Ivan, for whatever reason, chose to throw in his lot with a pack of feral street dogs rather than a pack of children. For two years, he survived the notoriously cold Russian winters and the dangers of the street by living with the pack. My book is a fictionalized account of those two years.

I first came across Ivan's story in 2005 in an article on feral children. When I read it, the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I shivered all over. I knew that if I never wrote another book (or any book for that matter) I had to write Ivan's story. I made a copy of a photo of Ivan taken not long after his capture and separation from the dogs and pinned it to the bulletin board in my office. Every day I looked at those haunted eyes and promised him I would write his story.

It took eleven years, but I kept that promise.