Balto and Togo

Many young people have heard or seen the story of Balto, the heroic sled dog who led Gunnar Kasson's final relay team into Nome carrying life-saving diphtheria serum to rescue the children of Nome, Alaska. In my third grade class we begin by enjoying the visual images created by hearing Margaret Davidson's Balto: the Dog Who Saved Nome read aloud. There are two other books I can recommend that children read: Natalie Standiford's The Bravest Dog Ever: the True Story of Balto and Elizabeth Cody Kimmel's Balto and the Great Race.

The Nome story cannot be considered complete without reading of another heroic lead dog, Togo! Do not miss Togo by Robert J. Blake. This book was so popular with Texas children, that it won the Texas Bluebonnet Award in 2005 (voted as #1 by elementary kids.)

My students will also hear me read The Great Serum Race: Blazing the Iditarod Trail and Arctic Light, Arctic Nights by Debbie S Miller, from Fairbanks, Alaska. The illustrations by Jon Van Zyle are not to be missed in these two books. As I am reading the first book, I love to add excerpts from the book for older readers by Gay Salisbury and Laney Salisbury called The Cruelest Miles: the Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic. On my trip to Alaska, I will attend an author presentation by Gay Salisbury, so I will have to remember to bring my copy along to get her autograph!

As the stories of Balto and Togo come to life, my students are surprised to find out that the bodies of these heroic canines have been preserved - stuffed and mounted! Balto is preserved at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Ohio, and Togo can be found at the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race Headquarters building in Wasilla, Alaska. Togo's "home" in Wasilla is understandable, because Wasilla is where the "official" Iditarod race begins. However, why would Balto be in Cleveland, Ohio? That will be a story for another day!