Elki is Not My Dog

A stray dog attracts the attention of a child and their playmates, and eventually the whole community. The story is based on a memory of the illustrator, Tonka Uzu, about how a little kindness can change a lot.

Uzu has the gift (often noted as part of Shirley Hughes’ art) of depicting children’s lives and body language clearly but without fuss, and it is this that draws us into the community who play near their flats. Elki – ‘She must have had a name when we met her, but we couldn’t ask her because none of us speaks “Dog.”’ – wanders into the children’s play space and is clearly in need of some care. The children (a multiethnic bunch of scooter-riders, footballers and ice cream eaters) take on the care of Elki, even though old Mrs Potts initially disapproves. The telling of the story brings us all in to appreciate the lives of the children, for example when the dog is out in the dark and the windows of the flats are lit up with the cooking and fixing, the chess-playing and TV-watching of the humans’ evening. Artist and narrator evoke our emotional engagement when the dog is unwell. Even Mrs Potts warms to Elki, but the story goes further. The pace slows and the tension is heightened. Will Elki recover?

The message – that we belong to the animals we care for, and that caring for animals can bring us joy – is important and well told, both in text and artwork (note that final image of the children playing, watched by the elderly Mrs Potts), but I am left with an uncertainty. When Melville writes ‘We all played outside forever;’ the ‘forever’ begs a lot of questions.