The Victory Dogs

Megan Rix's The Victory Dogs is a Blitz story for 9 year olds about a family dog who bolts at the air-raid siren just as her puppies are due.

What happens

It's London in 1940 and Jack is eighteen. He's leaving for the army in the morning, and his biggest worry is Misty, the cream-coloured dog who's slept on his bed every night for six years (and who's about to have her first litter).

His twelve-year-old sister Amy promises to look after her. At least a thousand strokes a day, she says.

Then, on a warm Saturday afternoon, the planes come. The family scramble into the Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden. Misty panics at the wailing and runs, and nobody is allowed to go after her.

What follows swaps between the humans and the animals. Jack and Amy search the blacked-out streets, and a warden sends them to Mr Ward, who rescues pets from bombed houses with his son Michael, a volunteer called Ellie and their dogs. Misty, meanwhile, is hurt and frightened, and she crawls into a narrow tunnel at the back of Wood Green station. That's where she meets Sheba, a tough old tabby with one ear who isn't scared of anything.

Megan Rix is very good at what animals notice. Misty hears the planes long before any person does. Being inside her head makes the scary bits feel very real.

There's lots of warmth too. Mr Ward's house smells like a pet shop, with cats on every shelf and an elderly Labrador called Heggerty who greets all the visitors. A rescued parrot keeps calling itself Mummy's little poppet and nips the hand that fills its water bowl!

It's worth knowing this is a proper war story, though. The bombing is loud and frightening. Misty is clipped by a car in the blackout and chased by a snarling stray, and the rescuers say plainly that some animals won't be found alive. Jack leaves on the Tube with Misty only a few feet away, and nobody knows. (That bit is hard going if you love dogs!)

If your reader gets very upset about animals in danger, you might want to read the first few chapters together. For a child who loves animals and history, it's a gripping way into the Blitz, full of kind people helping.

What to read next

If they'd like more pets caught up in the war, try The Great Escape. It opens in a North London garden in the summer of 1939, with Robert, his sister Lucy and their three animals, a digging Jack Russell called Buster, Rose the collie and Tiger the cat.