"Somehow, seeing his angst, his desolation, in a moment all the other horses were sleeping blissfully—just like I had snuck out into the night, twitchy with disappointments and questions, while my sister and Mrs. Scott slumbered—made my heart ache. For him. For me. It's as if that horse embodied all the fury and fear and loneliness, the self-doubt and what's-coming-next anxiety I was feeling that morning. Heck—had felt every second since Daddy disappeared."
L. M. Elliott's is an educational book without the educational feel. It will introduce middle graders to one of the most troubling periods in American history, the Great Depression. It will appeal to younger readers, especially the many who own or yearn to own a horse.
Bea's father has lost his job like so many other's in the 1930's. Her mother is dead. And the family is homeless. In search of a job for her father the family has been sneaking on freight trains, hitch hiking, and walking, sleeping wherever they can finder fashion shelter, eating whatever they can find.
One morning Bea wakes up bedded down in hay in a barn loft. Little sister Vivian is sleeping beside her. But their father is gone. He's left his girls a note. The owner of the house is the mother of their late mother's college roommate. She or her daughter will surely take them in.
Only it's not as simple as that. Mrs. Scott is behind on her bills and in peril of losing her home. The corn crop is drying up in the fields.
Desperate not to lose her newly gained housing, Bea will do anything she can to help Mrs. Scott—including jumping a volatile and dangerous horse at a horse show to win the prize money that will buy them time.
On a purrrsonal note, last night a thunder storm started up right at bed time. Thunder and lightning really scare Tobago. So I stayed up with her until it cleared on out. It worked. When she curled up beside me in bed she fell asleep in an instant.
A great big shout out goes out to my best little cat in the world.
Jules Hathaway
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