{"id":43024,"date":"2024-10-29T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-29T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=43024"},"modified":"2024-10-24T14:36:43","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T21:36:43","slug":"the-secret-project-soviet-space-dogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/the-secret-project-soviet-space-dogs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Secret Project \/ Soviet Space Dogs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Books That Belong On Paper<\/strong>\u00a0first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair.<\/em>\u00a0Sign up here<\/a>\u00a0to get the issues a week early in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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THE CREATION STORY OF THE ATOMIC BOMB TOLD THROUGH A POWERFUL AND MOVING PICTURE BOOK<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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The Secret Project<\/em>
by Jonah Winter, Jeanette Winter (Illustrator)
Beach Lane Books
2017, 40 pages, 8.0 x 0.3 x 11.0 inches, Hardcover<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buy on Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked if I was interested in reviewing a picture book about the making of the atomic bomb, I told the publicist that a lot was going to depend on how the book ended. I had seen some of the interior art and text at that point, and I was intrigued by the way the tone of both Jeanette Winter\u2019s illustrations and her son Jonah Winter\u2019s text so thoroughly conveyed the almost frenzied, kinetic energy of the inventors and the eerily quiet secrecy of the The Secret Project<\/em>. After reading the book, I realized that I had greatly underestimated the importance of the telling in its entirety, which is done so masterfully by the Winters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Secret Project<\/em> is a quiet book. It takes place, of course, in the New Mexico desert. There is almost no dialogue, nor description of sound. And yet, we can hear the echo of the children in the desert, \u201ccleared out\u201d of their school to make way for scientists and workers. In the paintings of the \u201cfaraway nearby\u201d outside the laboratory, we see the light and colors of the natural landscape, hear the soft, slow sounds of a coyote howling, of a woman\u2019s paintbrush on canvas, of a Hopi man\u2019s knife carving wood. Life outside the laboratory continues to create and sustain more life, while inside the secret lab, \u201cthe shadowy figures\u201d are hurriedly working, crowded together under dim light. The pace of both word and image is markedly different in the closed up world and work of the men inside the lab than in the desert outside. Even when they are outside, the scientists are separate. The men are shown only in the dark shadows of places of their own making \u2014 a car, a bunker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I won\u2019t ruin the end of this book for you. It was not what I expected, but, upon reaching the end the way you\u2019re supposed to (that is, after reading and being transported by the beginning and the middle), it was exactly as it should be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Mk Smith Despres<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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SOVIET SPACE DOGS IS THE FASCINATING & TRAGIC STORY OF THE DOGS WHO BECAME THE FIRST LIVING BEINGS IN SPACE<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Soviet Space Dogs<\/em>
by Olesya Turkina
FUEL Publishing
2014, 240 pages, 5.0 x 0.9 x 8.1 inches, Hardcover<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buy on Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A weighty, chunky book gilded with a colorful gold foil cover and illustrated with bold graphics of dogs orbiting the globe miles above a prominent Soviet Union emblazoned in red, Soviet Space Dogs is the fascinating, sometimes tragic story of the dogs who became the first living beings in space. Scientific martyrs of the space race between the US and Soviet Union that began in 1957 with the launch of the satellite Sputnik, the dogs became the embodiment of two cultural ideologies; the West believing the use of dogs in space was cruel, and the Russian belief that the dogs were heroically dying for the Motherland. Russian scientists cared deeply for their dogs, and treated them well while on Earth, but saw them as a necessary sacrifice. In the pursuit of knowledge and the desire to beat their Western nemesis into space, some dogs were lost, including Russia\u2019s most famous dog astronaut, Laika. After successfully returning to earth, the dogs became worldwide heroes, and the subjects of songs, poems, and stories, their likenesses on everything from matchbook covers to toys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Featuring beautiful images of vintage photographs of dogs wearing space helmets, postage stamps depicting rockets in lift-off, propaganda postcards of dogs in space suits, space-themed spinning tops, candy tins with photos of grinning dogs, children\u2019s books with parachuting canines, and ceramic flasks of rockets with dogs\u2019 heads jutting out of it as if they\u2019re on a Sunday drive, Soviet Space Dogs is a bittersweet book retelling the stories of brave beasts who boldly went where no one had gone before. With graphics on every page, the awkward placement of text below the images makes it somewhat difficult to read, and its slimmer than average width forces the reader to crack its spine uncomfortably. Still, it\u2019s a handsome, educational book, and a quick, poetic read.\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 SD<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Books That Belong On Paper Issue No. 38<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13684,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[31],"tags":[2398],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43024"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43024"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43045,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43024\/revisions\/43045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}