Balto, who made the final delivery, is often the (furry) face of the 1925 dogsled relay that heroically carried desperately needed antitoxin serum across Alaska to battle a diphtheria outbreak in the dead of winter. Clever and spirited Togo, however, led the team that traveled a longer, more dangerous leg of the trip, and this straightforward but exciting account describes how he grew from a sickly pup to become a trusted lead dog. The serum run is explained in enough detail to make a gripping story without overwhelming readers with a wall of text, while simple watercolors set the scene of a frigid, unforgiving landscape with screeching owls and treacherous ice. The narrative integrates elements of Togo's many adventures into this one journey, which may rankle some fact-checkers; ample back matter clarifies the time line and provides additional resources and information about dogsledding. Fans of heroic animals, epic journeys, and plucky upstarts will all find much to enjoy here d children who are chided for being "too active" may recognize a kindred spirit.

A celebration of the iconic sled dog who led a medical rescue mission to Nome, Alaska, in 1925Balto the sled dog still gets the press, but Togo did more of the work-leading a team that carried diphtheria serum through storm and over ice on one long, dangerous leg of a 674-mile relay mission. But the entire team's intrepid spirit and strength of doggy character-which Robert J. Blake portrayed so compellingly in his 2002Togo-is at best only fitfully present here. The golden, stubby-legged pooch in the painted illustrations doesn't look anything like the noble figure in the closing photos, and, when they're not lounging at ease in the Alaska wilderness, dining on fish elegantly served on dinner plates, the team's dogs are depicted merrily mushing along beneath clear, high skies over a neatly plowed path or even somehow upright on a vertical cliff, harking perhaps back to a previous reference to "curvy landscapes." And though the afterword has details about sled dogs in general and Togo's later life in particular, the author admits that one incident she's depicted to demonstrate his intelligence actually occurred on an earlier, unrelated journey. Togo's owner was white, but there is some racial variation in scenes depicting the crowds that flocked to see him on a subsequent tour of the U.S.Takes too many liberties with the facts, for all that the tribute is well deserved. (sources)(Informational picture book. 6-9)

Gr 1–2— Togo, a Siberian Husky born in Alaska in 1913, led a dog team in the historic serum-run to save the lives of children suffering from diphtheria in Nome in 1925. A brutal blizzard that year necessitated the use of 150 dogs to relay medicine from the capitol to Nome over the course of five days. Potter's flat ink and watercolor illustrations place readers in the midst of the windswept snow plains and mountainous territory the teams of animals crossed under extraordinarily difficult conditions. The featured human in this story, musher Leonhard Seppala, a Norwegian immigrant, is centered in this historical narrative that takes place against a backdrop of whiteness. Diverse skintones do appear, but the illustrations do not indicate the fact that one-third of Nome's population at the time was Indigenous, nor does the text acknowledge the existence of anyone other than Seppala and the governor of Alaska at the time of the event. The author's note provides context and identifies fact and fiction without addressing the illustrator's choice to represent the Togo's eyes as icy blue. Togo's eyes were recorded as having appeared brown. VERDICT With the stated shortcomings, this title will be of interest to collections where tales of animal heroics are popular.— Jessica Fenster-Sparber