GI Dogs – Hero Pup of World War I

GI Dogs - Hero Pup of World War I by Laurie Calkhoven is a true story for 7 year olds, told from start to finish by the dog it happened to.

What happens

Stubby was a stray on the streets of New Haven. He doesn't remember a mother or an owner. He remembers bins behind restaurants and one kind butcher who saved him bones.

Then the American army arrived to train on the Yale athletic fields, and Stubby, who describes himself as smart, strong, flat-out handsome and charming, followed his nose to the cookhouse.

He picked out a soldier called Bob Conroy and decided that was that.

The problem is that dogs aren't allowed on troopships. So Bob's friends wrap Stubby in a blanket and carry him up the gangplank, and he spends two days hidden in a coal bin in the engine room while the ship crosses the Atlantic.

He arrives in France covered in coal dust and gets caught almost immediately. What saves him is the salute Bob taught him, paw to forehead, held until the officer salutes back.

The war itself is not glossed over. Stubby explains the trenches, No Man's Land, the artillery you learn to tell apart by sound, and the rats. He describes the gas attack in March 1918 when he and Bob didn't get their masks on in time, and says flatly that without his mask he'd have died.

After that he works out his own warning system, running along the trench barking until the men put their masks on.

The dog's-eye telling is what carries it. Stubby is vain, food-obsessed and thoroughly pleased with himself. He thinks saluting is a silly waste of a perfectly good paw. He says goodbye to the ship's cooks by thanking them for the soup bones.

It also means the history goes down easily. Why America joined, what a doughboy was, what the Yankee Division did, all of it arrives inside a story about a dog who wants his dinner.

Do think about the cheerfulness, though, because that's the odd bit. This is a real war, with real gas and real casualties, described in a bright and jokey voice. One early scene has Stubby bite a German soldier and hang on. A child who takes things literally may need you to fill in what the tone is skipping past.

For a child who already loves dogs and is starting to ask about wars, it's a lovely way in, and the fact that all of it actually happened is a large part of the appeal.

What to read next

Another dog lands in the middle of a war in Attack on Pearl Harbor, which is in the library as well. Ranger is a search and rescue dog who travels back to Hawaii in 1941, and his training matters the moment the bombs start falling.