Title: Wonder Horse
Author: Anita Daher
Release date: 05/08/2015
Publisher: Rebelight Publishing
About the Book:
Fitting into a new school in a new city isn’t easy, but dreams come true for Sera with a gift from her parents: a gorgeous and spirited American Paint horse. Sera’s bubble bursts when a mean girl, Brittany, tells her that neither she nor her less than well-trained horse belong with the rest of the “reiners” in their riding class. As Sera sets out to prove Brittany wrong, she risks losing her passion for training and the friendship of Dev, another girl who truly understands her.
An earlier version of this story was originally published by Stabenfeldt (Stavanger, Norway) in 2011 as Wager the Wonder Horse and distributed in six languages: Norwegian, Hungarian, Czech, German, Finnish and Swedish.
Review:
★★★
I'll be the first to admit, I never really had a pony phase growing up. Maybe it was because I was a city-raised kid, but I didn't know anyone who had a horse, or who could afford one. We wished for Barbie Jeeps instead. However, my girlfriend loved horses growing up, and was even a rider. She's told me stories about horses that have made me regret not getting into them when I was younger, save for a ride or two at a carnival (which I know is totally not the same). She's kindled an appreciation of horses from me, which is why I wanted to read Wonder Horse.
Overall, I have to say this is a pretty heartwarming and cute read. It's a book about friendship and passions and setting goals and achieving them too, with an added dash of mean girls for good measure. Sera, the main character, struggles with finding who she really is and what she wants to do, which I think is something that we all question at some point in our youth.
I didn't really connect to Sera as much as I would have liked to. Like I mentioned a bit above, I think part of it was simply the fact that I'm an outsider looking in at horse riding culture. But I also didn't always appreciate Sera's tone, she was a bit whiny in places, and I thought the way she referred to her classmates was a bit snobby.
Other than these weak moments from Sera, I rather enjoyed this book. I think it's something a lot of younger girls (and boys too) will be able to connect to more easily than I did. This is a really short read at about 90 pages, so I recommend it to readers who are hesitant or don't necessarily enjoy reading yet. I'd also recommend it to the younger end of the YA spectrum, and to any kid who has the pony love that so many share.
I was provided a copy in exchange for my honest review.
Get it Here:
Amazon | BN
About the Author:
Anita Daher has been entrenched in the publishing industry since 1995, and is (thus far) author of fourteen books for children and teens. Aside from short stints as grave-plot seller, tour guide, and children’s party clown, she’s worked in aviation, publishing and broadcasting. When not word wrangling, she enjoys inhabiting characters on stage and screen.
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