I can't believe I've found this! I read it several times when I was a kid, and for decades I've had this faint memory of a story where a little girl counts the number of white horses she sees. I couldn't remember why she was doing it (getting to a hundred means you find something lucky, apparently) and I couldn't even remember anything else about the book, but I still had that vague recollection that never left. And here it is!

It's a very simple little story, and the main character Ellen is kind and relatable and fond of chocolate cake. I can't say that it's particularly surprising in the way it plays out, and it might only have got three stars from me if I didn't have that childhood memory associated with it (and if I weren't so happy to have found it again) but honestly, if even some of it stuck in the recesses of my brain for that long, it deserves the extra star. 

Lucky, lucky white horse, ding, ding, ding.