LoveReading4Kids Says
Shortlisted for the Week Junior Book Awards 2023
Being published at a time when Chernobyl and the Ukraine have very much been in the news again makes this remarkable story resonate even more powerfully.
While it does not go into any detail about the 1986 nuclear disaster itself, that looms oppressively over scenes which can be heart-breaking and brutally realistic. Animals frequently bear the brunt of human disasters, and it is well documented that soldiers were sent to dispatch abandoned pets and livestock. So initially the story is of a young girl Natasha being torn away from her beloved puppy Zoya, when she is forcibly evacuated.
Natasha’s life is emotionally blighted by this loss, as we see in chapters interspersed with the heart of the story which is of how Zoya survives in this fierce, cold and terrifying landscape where it is not just predators she has to fear. She makes it in the wild, mating with a wolf and raising two cubs, Misha and the radiation damaged Bratan and when she is finally killed in a battle with a lynx the story becomes theirs.
Brilliantly told, full of naturalistic details and completely nonanthropomorphic but entirely relatable descriptions of pack dynamics, attachments and characters, this is a totally gripping survival story. Dog lives run a shorter span and when, after 20 years have passed since she left, Natasha returns to the blighted area as a scientist studying radiation levels, it is a very elderly Misha that satisfyingly and credibly completes the circle of both story strands.
An unforgettable and moving novel that can genuinely stand up to comparisons with Call of the Wild and deserves similar classic status.
Joy Court
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Anthony McGowan Press Reviews
'This book! It broke my heart and then splintered it back together again. Full of hope and love and wildness. Can't even describe the plot but it has dogs and wolves and it's set in the aftermath of Chernobyl. It's just MAGNIFICENT. Imagine Watership Down meets The Animals of Farthing Wood but fiercer.' -- Hannah Gold, author of The Last Bear
'Steeped in Richard Adams' Plague Dogs and Watership Down, yet wearing all the hallmarks of Barry Hines at his finest, Dogs of the Deadlands is a wonderful thing. It moved me and stayed with me for an awfully long time.' -- Phil Earle, author of When the Sky Falls
'I was completely blown away by this brilliant, beautiful story. I was propelled back to reading Watership Down as an eight year old - this gave me that same feeling of having been indelibly changed by a story. It's a rare and special thing for a book to do.' -- Catherine Bruton, author of No Ballet Shoes in Syria
'Raw, unflinching, and blisteringly well written, Dogs of the Deadlands is already certain to be one of my books of the year! Just WOW.' -- A. M. Howell, author of The Garden of Lost Secrets
'A truly unforgettable tale of hope in the wilderness. This story feels classic, timeless. It will be read and read and read and loved by so many readers for a long time to come.' -- Keith Gray, author of Ostrich Boys
'Dogs of the Deadlands is extraordinary - exciting, brutal, heartbreaking, it carries you along with every howl, every bite and every moment of joy. Wonderful!' -- Alastair Chisholm, author of Orion Lost
'Beautifully written and emotionally devastating.' -- Bookseller, Most Anticipated Children's & YA titles 2022
'This is a powerful novel about how people's lives can change in an instant, and how the animals affected by human disaster learn to survive... a tense, thought-provoking drama whose descriptions of animal life are reminiscent of Watership Down. Rock the Boat is publishing a sumptuous hardback edition.' -- Charlotte Eyre - Bookseller, One to Watch
'Loved Dogs of the Deadlands - swept along by the story - powerful telling of dogs' survival in the wilds against the backdrop of Chernobyl and the spaces humans left behind.' -- Gill Lewis, author of A Street Dog Named Pup
Praise for Anthony McGowan:
'The Carnegie medal winner McGowan is superb at stories about children who do not have all the advantages.' Sunday Times
'McGowan's prose is beautiful in its brevity and devastating in its emotional impact.' Bookseller
