This Month's Book Reviews

A horse story that contains a history lesson
while delivering high adventure

Author Victoria Holmes has set her novel "Rider in the Dark" in the England of the 1740's. Helena, the heroine, is the daughter of a wealthy landowner who lives in a manor close to the English coast. Her love of horses and her willingness to resist her parents' over-protectiveness leads her, unexpectedly, into the world of poor, but otherwise honest, people who engage in smuggling in order to evade high taxation. In addition, she encounters those who would wreck ships and kill survivors in order to enrich themselves. Helena has to find out how to bring one group to justice without giving away the secrets of the other group. And all of this is wrapped up in the story of a girl and her love of horses.

Another story about the connection between a girl
and a horse

The paperback book "Dreamer," published by Scholastic, Inc., is based on the script of the movie of the same name. The story itself is, supposedly, based on true events. The little book is well-written and makes an absorbing horse story for a kid to read, even though some of us adults might see it as very derivative. The young girl who is the story's main character is the one who has faith in the injured animal she loves. It is her care and concern for the mare that makes an almost miraculous recovery possible. Just as in many kids' books, it is a youthful main character that saves the day and helps a troubled family regain its fortune and go on to live happily ever after. You should have no qualms about encouraging your young reader to read this one.

It's not Hemmingway,
but it's a great fish story for kids

Rodman Philrick's "Young Man and the Sea" was published in paperback in 2004 by Scholastic, Inc., the largest publisher of kids' books. The School Library Journal in a review called it "wide-open adventure, heart-pounding suspense, and just the right amount of tear-jerking pathos." Who is this reviewer to take issue with that kind of rhetoric? The story of a twelve-year-old, who has just lost his mother, and whose father is so depressed that he has regressed to a drunken, near-catatonic state, is not a story for little kids. It's an account of a young boy who really overreaches himself to try to solve his family's problems. However, what any adult would see as recklessness on the boy's part, does work out and leads to a happy ending for both the boy and his father.

A prize-winning kids' novel set in 1950's Appalachia

"Belle Prater's Boy" by Ruth White and published in 1996 was named a Newbery Honor Book, an ALA Notable Children's Book, and a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, among other awards. It was published as a Yearling paperback in 2004.

Pre-teens and early teens who read the little book will have no trouble identifying with the young characters in it, even though they lived fifty years ago. Parents might want to know, however, that Gypsy, the child narrator of the story, has to deal with her repressed memory of finding her father's body after his suicide. The Belle Prater whose name is in the title is a wife and mother who finally copes with her unhappiness by running away to start a new life. Motivation for both of these actions is provided as the plot unfolds.