By Jan Pease
What is it about girls and horses? A horse-loving patron mentioned that little
boys often like horses, but it’s the girls who love them. Horse books are perennial favorites, and
we've recently added several titles that will be well known to horse lovers.
Jane Smiley is famous for her novel, A
Thousand Acres, which received the Pulitzer
Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992. She has a string of letters after her name,
including MA, MFA, and PhD. But did you
know that this wonderful writer has written a series of books for young
adults? Titles recently purchased
include The Georges and the
Jewels (2009), A
Good Horse (2010), True Blue (2011), Pie in the Sky (2012), and Gee Whiz (2013). Jane says on her
website, “When a girl and a horse find each other, the bond is
unbreakable.”
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The Winter Pony, by
Iain Lawrence, is a book that I almost didn’t purchase for the library. I don’t like books where the dog, or pony,
dies. Spoiler alert! In this book, all of the characters die. Winter
Pony is the story of the ill-fated expedition to the South Pole led by
Robert Falcon Scott. This story of
courage and kindness needs to be told, but be sure to have a box of Kleenex
handy as you near the end of the book.
Kathryn Lasky has started a new series, “Horses of the
Dawn.” The first book, The Escape, introduces us to the horses
and their culture, as they escape from Spanish Conquistadores and journey to
the land of the sweet grass. Ms. Lasky
created an owl culture in her Guardians of “Ga’Hoole” series, and wolves in
“Wolves of the Beyond,” so it makes sense that she would do the same with
horses.
Saige, by Jessie Haas, is an American Girl Today novel. One of the customer reviews at amazon.com
stated: “This is a great book with a
heartwarming tale. I did wish it lasted
longer though.” This is high praise
indeed for a sweet little book about a plucky girl and her grandmother’s
beautiful horse.
Last year, Mary Pope Osborne brought out
her 49th “Magic Tree House” book, Stallion by Starlight and its companion book, Horse
Heroes. Ms. Osborne’s research is meticulous, and I’m
glad that she and her sister, Natalie Pope Boyce, began sharing that
information with readers.
Black Beauty, the Black Stallion Books, and other favorites
are still available, and still are checked out by horse lovers. But perhaps the ultimate title is this one: For Horse-crazy Girls Only: Everything You Want
to Know About Horses, by Christina Wilsdon.
The title explains itself.
Yes, the boys are left out. But they
usually aren’t “horse-crazy.” See you
at the library!
