for all those ya horse fiction authors out there...

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the nice, reliable, nice guy in horse books

Is it weird that I'm starting to think the nice, reliable, nice guy love interest in middle grade horse books is kind of creepy? Going over my posts for just about every middle grade horse book I have ever read for this blog (and the ones that I vaguely remember from yesteryear that I can't be bothered with reading again), the trend is to place the adorable, determined main character who cannot brush her hair and sneers at fashionable jeans with a boy who is two years older than her. Determined main character is always twelve to fourteen when this happens. Nice, reliable boy is always fourteen to sixteen, depending on her age. It's always a two year age difference. Occasionally three, if you count boy age confusion, because he's commonly "fifteen or sixteen." Also, you know, Brad (initially 15) and Ashleigh (initially, um, almost 12). Don't try to tell me that wasn't lust fueled madness. I won't hear it.

For some reason, it didn't bother me until the other day when I stopped everything I was doing and suddenly had to ask my mother if this trend disturbed her.

Her answer was yes. Yes, it does. And then there was a long discussion about developmental differences, because that's what I get for talking to someone who's both a mother of two daughters and in the medical field.

So I started thinking about Chris Platt's Astra. About how this book essentially gives the main character two options: aggravating, immature boy that is the main character's age (13) or nice, reliable, helpful boy (15 or 16). Of course, she's going to choose nice, reliable guy because thirteen-year-old boys are more interested in being self-absorbed, pseudo antagonists who are mean to the girls they like. But would the nice, reliable sixteen-year-old boy be interested in our thirteen-year-old determined girl? Should he be? Shouldn't someone be throwing on the breaks to this relationship? Like, say, a parent? Logically, shouldn't the determined girl be interested in the boy who is her age?

Maybe it's moot because determined horse girls basically act like they're forty by the time they hit puberty. But, it's still something that I find troubling. I open the floor to discussion.

secretariat saves his own movie, because he's that awesome

Secretariat
2010

You guys, I know. If you still visit this blog, you probably wonder just where I went and if I still read horse books and view horse movies and torture myself endlessly with their varying shades of something we might call "quality."

I would like to sit here and tell you that I have a huge back load of books and movies to review, but I would be lying. The best excuse I can come up with is...I just haven't been trying very hard? Yes, that pretty much sums it up.

Seriously, that and I needed a break. It was glorious.

Now, that said, I did run off and see Secretariat on opening weekend. I have pondered whether or not I liked it since. I never really cared about Penny Chenery, and I can say with some seriousness that I still don't really care about Penny Chenery. Am I a little dismayed that they should have called this movie Chenery: Housewife Turned Inspirational Rogue? Somewhat,  yes. Because this movie is basically Chenery: Housewife Turned Inspirational Rogue masquerading as a movie about Secretariat because, as the movie's makers probably figured out well before me, Penny Chenery? Yeah, not so much.

Hi, there! I'm every horse book you've ever read.

Astra
by Chris Platt
2010

I've read a few Chris Platt books, and commented on them accordingly with the loving obsession of a person who has read too many Thoroughbred books and is currently stalking its authors.  I know, I have no shame.  Willow King, Race the Wind!, Moon Shadow...the only non-Thoroughbred book of hers that I haven't gripped in my freakishly cold fingers is Storm Chaser.

After reading Astra, I'm really wondering about Storm Chaser.  In fact, I am going to have to get it soon so I can confirm a rising suspicion. 

Thirteen-year-old Lily O'Neil's passion is Arabian horses.  Someday she wants to be a great endurance rider like her mother.  But a year earlier, after a freak riding accident took her mother's life, Lily's father sold his daughter's beloved pony and forbade her to ride ever again.

When Lily's grandmother comes to live with them, however, she convinces Mr. O'Neil to let Lily clean stalls on the neighboring Arabian ranch, a place her mother had worked--and loved.  Lily is ecstatic, especially since she'll be near her mother's favorite horse--Astra.  Lily's mother had always believed that Astra had the talent to become a national champion.  Her goal was to ride her in the famous Tevis Cup Endurance Race, the toughest horse race in America.

Lily is determined to make her mother's dream come true.  But how will she convince her father to let her ride again?

So that's the summary.  Endurance riding!  What a breath of fresh air!  It's not three-day eventing or, god forbid, mustangs.  That in itself is great, apart from the endurance factoids that stuck out like sore thumbs.  Kind of like when Mary Anderson was inserting random horse racing facts into Thoroughbred, a land where horse racing facts go to die slow, miserable deaths.  The problem was in the rest of it.

The Winner of Astra

The random drawing winner is...

wldhrsjen3!

Come on down and claim your prize.  :)

Giveaway: Astra

Thirteen-year-old Lily O'Neil's passion is Arabian horses.  Someday she wants to be a great endurance rider like her mother.  But a year earlier, after a freak riding accident took her mother's life, Lily's father sold his daughter's beloved pony and forbade her to ride ever again.

When Lily's grandmother comes to live with them, however, she convinces Mr. O'Neil to let Lily clean stalls on the neighboring Arabian ranch, a place her mother had worked--and loved.  Lily is ecstatic, especially since she'll be near her mother's favorite horse--Astra.  Lily's mother had always believed that Astra had the talent to become a national champion.  Her goal was to ride her in the famous Tevis Cup Endurance Race, the toughest horse race in America.

Lily is determined to make her mother's dream come true.  But how will she convince her father to let her ride again?

Giveaway time, kids!  I give you Chris Platt's Astra, which was released last week.  Comment to be considered.  Contest ends 9/15. 

War Horse & News

Somehow I missed that Steven Spielberg was turning War Horse into a movie.  Here are set photos.  I suppose this means I need to actually read this book? 

There are a few horse books on deck for this blog, as well as a ton of planned giveaways, however I am in the middle of a move and new job madness, so please excuse the summer malaise around here.  We'll get back to some regularly scheduled programing soon.