I had originally purchased this book for one of my daughters. The only type of book that she would even look at were those that involved horses. While my daughter read this book long ago, it has just remained sitting on my digital shelf.

This is not a type of story that would attract me. If I venture into children's chapter books I usually stick to the worlds of science fiction or fantasy. However, there is no doubt that this is an amazing book.

The writing is splendid. The storytelling is vivid capturing both the horses and the humans so well that it is easily to picture them in your head. The plot is simple, it is a children's book, but well developed with conflict and anticipation. I was surprised that this book would evoke an emotional response in me. The ending was beautiful, but also bittersweet. In a way, it was inevitable.

The book was first published in 1947, so it does talk about a different time. There are not equal gender roles between the children. Boys were allowed to do some tasks, and girls others. However, for the time I am actually surprised at how liberal the book is. Also, the older characters smoke pipes and one of the children fed tobacco to a horse. I did not feel like this took away from the story at all, but it is values that may have changed from the setting of the piece. That being said, this book is still very worthy of being considered an amazing children's book.