Have horses had their day? When I was growing up, girls were horse mad, at least as cliche would have it. They read horse books and longed for riding lessons and dreamed of the unattainable, their very own pony. Long before my own childhood, boys loved horses. They dreamt of being cowboys and watched shows like Roy Rogers and the Lone Ranger and Zorro where the heroes rode in to save the day. They charged about on stick ponies waving cap guns or cowboy hats.
But do horses have a place today? Will modern readers still enjoy reading about stallions and fillies? Or are we too far removed from horses for them to interest kids these days? Will the undisputed queen of horse novels, Marguerite Henry’s, books hold up? Or are only the magical and mystical counterparts, the Pegasus and the unicorn, still exciting enough to captivate today’s readers?
Saddle up, we’re horsing around this April.
My favorite was always A Horse for X.Y.Z. by Louise Moeri. It’s a great wilderness survival adventure, and I still reread it.