![]() She's used that story to create a compelling and highly original fiction, with Mishka's experiences somewhere between Holman's Slake's Limbo (BCCB 4/75) and The Jungle Book (indeed, the police trying to catch him call him "Mowgli"). As a note explains, Pyron bases her story on a real child, one of Moscow's many street children in the 1990s, who lived for two years with a pack of dogs (a story also explored in Eva Hornung's adult title Dog Boy). Soon he forsakes human company entirely and becomes part of the dog pack, helping them find food and benefiting from their warmth and protection. Initially connecting with a crowd of street kids who eke out a living in one of the city's railroad stations, gentle Mishka is upset by their violence and immorality, and he's increasingly drawn to the friendly yet cunning dogs that are also scavenging to survive. Five-year-old Mishka (his nickname from his mother) has been ejected from his home by his mother's brutal boyfriend, who has apparently killed Mishka's mother, and he's struggling to survive on the streets of Moscow rather than end up in the city's legendarily savage orphanages. ![]() ![]() In the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union, life is a struggle for many poor Russians. ![]()
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