- a 12-year-old girl navigates new responsibility with her family’s horses, deals with sibling angst*, and struggles with guilt from a past mistake
- overall enjoyable story, especially for horse lovers
- convo: implies a crush at school a few times (blushing, eyes meeting, voice squeaking), a girl crosses her heart to make a promise, some brief lying, rule breaking behind parents’ backs but it’s punished, 12-y-o throws & breaks things in a tantrum, mild instance (possibly 2) of a “you’re enough/follow your dreams” type message given to the girl
- language: x4 butt, x6 stupid, x1 spoiled brat, x1 idiot
Type: chapter book
Ages: 10-14
Author: Robin Kolb
It’s not very often you find a story set in Montana–at least not in the few hundred chapter books I read each year! Kolb skillfully works horse terminology into the prose and somehow provides definitions without feeling didactic. Middle graders who already know this equestrian world will be delighted to “speak the language” as they can visualize the scenes, but, rest assured, it’s completely readable by those who know nothing about horses. It was a delightful element.
*Regarding the above-mentioned sibling issues…the main character’s older sister is dealing with her own big feelings and sometimes has an attitude. The girls share a bedroom, and things ultimately work out. The younger brother, on the other hand, is sometimes just the scapegoat for the girl’s own issues. She mentally nicknames him, “Austin the Annoying” and is frequently thinking about how annoying he is. It was a bit much for me, but younger readers might gloss over it.
Overall, I truly enjoyed Kolb’s writing style–such fun word choices frequently brought life to the story. The family was intact, they worked together quite a bit, and lessons were learned from mistakes yet not perfectly (making it realistic). I’m happy to recommend it, as long as parents are okay with the bullet points above!