A Good Book Is Universal

In Odd Dog (2012), written and illustrated by Clau-dia Boldt, two dogs live next door to one another (see Figure 1). One jealously guards his apple tree and is just waiting for a delicious apple to ripen. When it finally drops to the ground, it’s on the other side of the fence. The dogs are named Helmut and Igor. The author-illustrator is German, living in Lon-don. (NorthSouth Books bought the book from Ran-dom House UK, where it was originally published.) At NorthSouth, we thought Helmut and Igor were a bit unusual for dog names, so with the author’s permis-sion, we changed the names to the more American Milo and Peanut, which we thought were very cute. Later in the process, we learned that Helmut and Igor were meant to poke fun at a strained relationship between Germany and Russia—two countries histori-cally prone to thinking that the other is always getting the better deal. All this, in a funny little book about dogs in their backyards.