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 recommends a book that offers a fresh perspective on the news.

I was reading a Wall Street Journal article the other day about earpieces that will soon offer instant translation, when my gaze slid sideways and hooked on a headline that said: "Bravery on Four Legs."  Well, that was it.  I'll read anything about dogs.

 column, and she tells the true story of Balto, a sled dog extraordinaire who blazed a path over hundreds of miles of Alaskan wilderness. He was part of a sled dog team that was bringing medicine to children who were suffering from diphtheria in Nome.

I figured that had to be a tale told in a book — and it is. There are a handful of Balto books for young readers, but one of the best is "The Bravest Dog Ever" by Natalie Standiford.

But how do you escape the sentimentality that so often shows up in adult books about dogs?

Read "Dogs & Devotion" by the Monks of New Skete. They are an order of monks at a New York monastery who have been raising German Shepherds for more than three decades. This line from the introduction tells you everything you know about their methods: "Perhaps one of the reasons we are so devoted to our dogs is that they help us become who we are supposed to be."

So, my recommendations this week are two books on dogs: "The Bravest Dog Ever" and "Dogs & Devotion."

If you have a favorite book — fiction or not — about dogs, please share it with me on Twitter 

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The Thread® - Books and Literary News

Kerri Miller

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MPR News host Kerri Miller is hooked on books about dogs for this week's reading recommendations.

Frederick Roth with a miniature Balto sculpture

It's a dog read dog world

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