Hoofbeats everywhere, never stopping
Gonna ride my palomino
Ride him to the fair”
– Raffi (1977)
“All the grown-ups kept telling her it wasn’t her fault. Harper wanted to know whose fault it was. She wanted to know why they’d let a horse, any horse, get in this condition, and then she wanted to punch them in the neck. Or not feed them, until they were this thin and miserable.
The vet examined Phoenix. ‘He’s not worse than he looks,’ she finally said.
‘What does that mean?’ Harper asked.
‘It means his heart and lungs sound okay. He doesn’t seem to have any systemic disease, not so far as I can easily tell. He doesn't have a lot of symptoms other than being dangerously underweight. I’ll write out a schedule for increasing his hay. Keep him in this paddock. No grass, no grain, no carrots, no treats–nothing.’
‘I’ll post a sign,’ Miss Chelsea said. ‘I’ll make sure all my students know.’
Dr. Vaughan was scribbling things on a piece of paper. ‘So,’ she said, looking up, ‘he belongs to?’
‘Me,’ said Harper.
Dr. Vaughan raised her eyebrows.
‘Harper,’ Miss Chelsea said, ‘let me buy him from you. I’ll give you a dollar, and I’ll pay his bills.
‘That’s generous,’ Harper’s mom said.
‘No, it isn’t!’ Harper said. She was suddenly furious. She didn’t know what horses cost, but good ones were expensive, she was sure of that. ‘He’s a good horse!’ she said. ‘Just because he’s been neglected and starved and thrown away, he’s still a good horse–’
She burst into tears. Again. Right in front of Dante and Night. Without the least understanding of why. She’d never been much of a crier, before the Bomb.”
Eleven-year-old Harper has been dealt a really tough hand. The Bomb. She’d had a nice home with two parents, a best friend named Cat across the street, and few worries. But then her mother needed to go home unexpectedly, and discovered Harper’s dad across the street with Cat’s mom.
Harper’s mom files for divorce, packs up Harper and the family dog, and leaves town, renting a tiny house located on the property where Miss Chelsea has a horse farm and gives riding lessons. Dante and Night are two of Miss Chelsea’s students with whom Harper is destined to become friends.
A short while thereafter, Miss Chelsea and her students are out of town at a horse show, when an unscrupulous pair of men hauling a trailerload of horses headed for a slaughterhouse comes by. They want to unload an emaciated gelding who is lying down in the trailer. In a wink of an eye, Harper finds herself the sudden beneficiary of a free, near-death horse.
Thanks to a Google search, Harper and her mom figure out what to do (and not to do) until Miss Chelsea returns. Suddenly, her heart touched by the “good horse” she names Phoenix, Harper thirsts to learn everything she can about horses, and offers to work for Miss Chelsea, when she’s not at school, in exchange for being able to keep Phoenix and learn to care for and ride him.
So begins the first book in a “Ride On” series planned by author Kimberly Brubaker Bradley.
As a teen, I enjoyed the occasional Sunday trail ride with friends. It was my sister who was the toroughly obsessed “horse nut,” hitchhiking up to a nearby stable after school every day to care for her first horse. Thus, I know how some young people can become “horse crazy.” To that extent, you might say that this is a “dangerous” book. I guarantee you that there’ll be some young readers out there for whom this tale–which accurately details aspects of the care and riding of horses–becomes the first chapter in a lifelong real-life equine saga.
PHOENIX will thoroughly entrance young animal lovers, including those who didn’t know they were so. I strongly advise adding this horse tale to elementary and middle school collections. Meanwhile, I look forward to the second book in the series.
Recommended by: Richie Partington, MLIS, California USA
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