MUSH!

No, not baby cereal, you sillies. The 35th Annual Iditarod Sled Dog Race!

Today is Day Six of the "Last Great Race On Earth", which began March 1st in Anchorage, Alaska. When the race ends roughly four days from now, the Mushers and their teams of 12 to 16 dogs will have traveled over 1,000 miles - - in temps reaching 40 below 0 - - to reach Nome on the western coast of the Bering Sea.

The race honors the days before the invention of 'the iron dog' (snowmachine), when dog teams and their stout-hearted mushers played a major role in Alaska's long-range transportation system. The most well-known tail . . . er, TALE of the Iditarod Trail took place in 1928, when a diphtheria epidemic threatened the icebound town of Nome. A relay of dog teams was organized, and a life-saving serum was mushed 700 miles, from Anchorage to Nome, in 127 hours. The lead dog, Balto, and his musher Gunnar Kaasen, barrelled through the last two legs of the journey in an 80-mph blizzard. A statue paying homage to the brave Balto was erected in 1929 in New York's Central Park.

To learn more about this magnificent race, visit the Official Site of the Iditarod at http://www.iditarod.com. The site features a photo gallery, Iditarod traditions and legends, rules and awards, FAQs, and a doggone great teacher's page, complete with activities, books, links and a teacher's guide. There's even a Dog Blog from Zuma, the K-9 reporter. Woof!

Two books about the Iditarod that I highly recommend are:




Dashing Through the Snow: The Story of the Junior Iditarod
by Sherry Shahan
Grades 3rd - 6th

To research Dashing Through The Snow, Sherry lived for a time with a family of dog-mushers in Alaska. "Not only did I document their daily chores of caring for fifty Alaskan huskies," she says, "but I followed them on a snowmobile during day-long training runs into the vast white wilderness. Sometimes I helped them 'clean' the kennel, which isn't as easy as it sounds. Scooping with a shovel doesn't work when the dog poop is frozen to the ground!"

Sherry offers an fascinating slide-show program for grades 3rd-8th about her book and Iditarod experiences, which she presents while dressed in musher garb. For more info about Sherry, visit:
http://www.authorfest.org/authors/shahan/index.html. To contact her about her school programs, email Sherry at: kidbooks@thegrid.net.



Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod
by Gary Paulsen
Recommended for YA and adult readers. Portions could be read to 5th and 6th graders as well.

Winterdance is one of the best books I've ever read. It's poignant, hilarious, frustrating, frightening, exhilarating, suspenseful, revealing and absolutely unforgettable. To learn more about Paulsen's experiences running the Iditarod race, visit his website at:
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/garypaulsen/


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Happy Birthday Today to:

Thacher Hurd, author and illustrator of Mama Don’t Allow and Moo Cow Kaboom.
http://www.thacherhurd.com/