Book Giveaway: Week 2

For week two, I am prepared to offer what I have of the series known as A Horse Called Bonnie.  Or whatever.  It could conceivably be called something else, like Girl and Dog Rescue Horse From Ghosts and Simultaneously Cure Heartburn/Cause Imminent Peril By Driving Crazy And Other Fabulous Adventures!

It's kind of an insane (or awesome? awesomely insane?) few books.  They were just recently republished, but I've got the old school, forty-year-old copies.  The books in this batch will be as follows:

A Horse Called Bonnie

Sunbonnet: Filly of the Year

The Betrayal of Bonnie

That's the second, third and fifth books in the five-part series, for those not aware.

So, listen.  All three of these books broke my brain in different ways that I don't think I'm ready to really contemplate yet.  However, they are fantastic reads.  The person who receives these books will be damn well happy they have them as they are presented by plots that will delight and horrify them all at once.

You only need to comment, and your name goes in the hat.  Previous winners need not apply.  Contest ends August 1st.  Winner announced August 2nd.

(Yo, Rebecca: you won the last round.  I also need your address.) 

Upcoming Books

The Risen Horse
by Karen Taschek (aka Karen Bentley)
Release Date: September 15

It's 1905 in New Mexico Territory, and John Chavez, a survivor of Victorio's band of Mescalero Apache warriors whom we first met in Horse of Seven Moons, is now an adult with teenage children of his own. Life is difficult on the reservation, and after the death of his beloved wife, John decides to send his daughter, Isabel, to the Indian Industrial boarding school in far-off Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to get a fine education and leave the reservation village. Reluctantly, Isabel agrees to go, although she doesn't want to leave her family or the horses she secretly trains on the reservation.

At first Carlisle is everything Isabel and her father hoped for, but the school is not immune to tragedy, and Isabel must confront her fears of death and loss. She finds new horses to train and love, linking her life and passion to the horse her father is training for her as a special surprise back home. This story of the tribulations of early reservation life that led to the modern-day triumphs of the Mescalero people also offers a rare glimpse at the strengths of education at Carlisle, largely remembered for its flaws. 

 I am so excited, you guys.   (My thoughts on Horse of Seven Moons can be found here.)

Dream of Night

Dream of Night
by Heather Henson
2010
Reading Level: Ages 9-12

Untamable.  Damaged.  Angry.

Once full of promise and life, now lost in the shadows of abuse.  This is Dream of Night's story--and it is also Shiloh's.  One is a Thoroughbred racehorse, the other a twelve-year-old foster child.  By chance they both find themselves under the care of Jessalyn DiLima--a final stop for each before the state takes more drastic measures.  If this doesn't work out, the girl will be sent to a "residential facility" and the horse to a vet...for euthanizing.

This is their last chance, so why are they both so resistant?  And why can't they see that Jess's life is not as easy as it seems?  She fosters animals and children like them for a reason--she's a little broken too.  And, like Shiloh and Dream of Night, Jess knows what it means to have lost nearly everything you love.

So, I haven't read a horse book since May?  Is that even possible?  Apparently so.  Also seemingly impossible, I have decided to delve back into my black hole of horse books by starting with the most abusetastic of the bunch.

Dream of Night is told from three perspectives.  Shiloh, the girl who never came from the best background and wound up getting beaten repeatedly and burned by her mother's boyfriend; Dream of Night, who was a promising racehorse and/or a champion who was plagued with injury before falling off the face of the earth to end up in one of those wildly insane abusive situations; and Jess, who takes them both in and attempts to rehabilitate them.

For most of the book, both Shiloh and Dream of Night make some truly impressive attempts to not be helped.  Shiloh's over there writing every curse word she knows on the walls of her closet and ripping Misty of Chincoteague to shreds because it's Jess's favorite book.  Night spends all of his time screaming and ripping the blankets Jess has the audacity to put on his hairless body.  It's...kind of annoying.  I can't decide if this is my experience with horse abuse plots, or because I am the impatient sort.  Night didn't bother me as much as Shiloh, as her path toward great enlightenment takes longer while she's being destructive and blindly, belligerently ignorant (which is totally her prerogative, being twelve and all).  Jess does come off as even more saintlike for weathering Shiloh's nonstop storm, which is mostly extremely intense even while Shiloh makes some tiny strides toward caring about anything (i.e. Night) outside of how screwed up her immensely screwed up childhood obviously is.  Night, predictably, only starts to take some strides toward not being angry at the world when equally angry and messed up Shiloh approaches him out of...I will assume this is a kindred spirits sort of thing?

The book is framed by phone calls.  Shiloh's mom doesn't help matters when she keeps finding the phone number for whatever foster family has taken her in, so she can totally confuse Shiloh on the fact that she's not ever going to be a capable mother.  And Night's previous owner keeps calling randomly and hanging up, presumably waiting for someone to get on the line and tell him the address of the number he keeps calling.  How he got the number and not the address is anyone's guess, but essentially he wants Night back...so he can randomly attack him with chains some more.  Great way to convince the courts that you're a responsible horse owner!  Sure, it makes no sense, but then no one ever said that abusive situations are ever logical.

The book cheats a little bit and skips forward a year, giving us moderately stable Shiloh and moderately healed Night, because to not see them a little bit progressed past the state in which they spent the vast majority of the book would be too much for pretty much anyone to handle.  

- The book is mostly made up of fragments and italics.  Horses whinny like this: Rrrhhhraaaa!  Which I found kind of hilarious, especially when Night and his former owner have an altercation that was written as Rrrhhraaaa!  "Aaaaaaaahhh!"  Rrrhhhraaaaa!  "Aaaaaaaahhh!"  Rrhhhraaaaa!

- Yes, I'm easily amused.

Week One Winner

The winner of the first giveaway is:

Rebecca

(I celebrate everything with big fonts!)

Rebecca, please supply me with your address.  You can e-mail me over at wbfblog (at) gmail (dot) com. 

New giveaway will be posted tomorrow.  Keep on the look out!

Book Giveaway: Week 1

You guys, it's come to my attention that I'm hoarding horse books.  I know.  What was my original rule way back in the day?  Don't hoard horse books.  I'm hoarding!  This is just...horrible.  That's what this is.

So I'm putting a stop to it.  I've decided to split up the books I've got into somewhat related piles and give them away on (something like) a weekly basis.  I've got enough books for six (maybe seven or eight, actually) weeks of giveaways in a row.  Yes, I did just say that.  It's giveaway summer!

The first giveaway will include the following books:

Yes, Joanna Campbell books.  I know what you're thinking.  It's probably something like I shouldn't, I really shouldn't, but I WANT them.  That's how I felt, too. 

How do you enter to win these lovely relics of the '80s?  Just leave a comment on the blog!  Contest ends 7/23.  Winner selected on 7/24, while I'm recovering from jet lag.

In the meantime, I'm going to go read Dream of Night.  Really, I am.  I'm not lying. 

Moondance Alexander

Moondance Alexander
2007

Surprisingly enough, this isn't a horrible movie.

I know, that's not exactly a glowing first sentence, but it's true!  At first glance, it's just another story about a girl and Pinto rising from friendless obscurity to compete against Sasha Cohen, who has inexplicably decided to ride horses instead of figure skate in the Olympics.  Random?  Possibly!

Moondance (and I will not pick on her name, because theoretically it's just as stupid as the name Crystal) is a lonely kid who has just completed 9th grade.  No one will sign her yearbook, because she does not wear skirts and is therefore friendless.  Fiona, resident antagonist, sticks her gum on one of the pages after pretending to be nice enough to sign it, leaving it very clear to Moondance that she should just stop trying.  Moondance gets the message and bikes her way to the local graveyard so she can cry at her dad's headstone.

She picks herself back up after a rousing speech to herself/her dead father, and goes to her delivery job, where she happens to run into a Pinto she promptly names Checkers and takes to her backyard.  She houses Checkers in her mother's art studio/storage shed, but this is short lived, as the horse has to go back to Tumbleweed Stables, from whence it originated.  Moondance is crushed, but not in a way that makes me want to roll my eyes and check out of the movie.  She's actually not a bad character in that the way she acts doesn't make me want to throw things at the television.

Strangely enough, a portion of this scenario happened to me when I was, like, nine years old.  Friend and I were walking through the woods and a horse came plunging out of nowhere, befriended us over the course of several days, and then acted all betrayed when we tried to climb on it.  A shoe string may have been involved.  Because riding a horse you don't know bareback without saddle and bridle in the middle of the woods without any supervision whatsoever is a FANTASTIC idea.  These things happen, people!  It's shocking we weren't killed, now that I think about it.  But, you know, we were nine.  This girl is fourteen.  What's her excuse?

Conveniently, she runs into Tumbleweed Stables anyway, strikes up a deal with crotchety Don Johnson, and gets to ride Checkers.  Sasha Cohen comes along to point out to her that Pintos are worthless Indian ponies, and saunters off on her warmblood.  Whatever.  Don Johnson catches her trying to jump Checkers after that, puts a stop to it just to give her an English saddle, and then stalks off to drink in his office.  Eventually he decides to help, and there are actually some training scenes involving lunging.  COLOR ME SHOCKED.

A competition comes along, practically everyone in town enters it, Sasha Cohen and Moondance have it out, and there are predictable results.  There's also more derogatory remarks about Pintos being unsavory in hunter competitions.  Pintos and mustangs are cut from the same cloth, apparently.

It's not a bad movie, mainly because whoever plays Moondance manages to not be completely annoying.  Except for maybe that scene in the backyard, and during the colic episode (because there is always a colic episode.)  Yes, love saves all.  Determination and spirit are all it takes.  Friends...aren't important?  Who needs them!  Give possible step-fathers and step-brothers a chance.  Antagonists are icky.  You don't have to wear skirts and lip gloss to feel okay about yourself.  Pintos are FINE horses, too.  Thank you very much.

Verdict: Okay horse drama.  Maybe not the best use of an hour and a half.

The Whirlwind is not a metaphor.

Whirlwind
by Alison Hart
Release Date: May 25, 2010
Sequel to Shadow Horse.

When thirteen-year-old Jas Schuler found her beloved mare, Whirlwind, dead in her paddock, she thought her heart would break. Now Jas knows the truth.

Whirlwind is alive.

Wealthy horse breeder Hugh Robicheaux faked the mare's death, collected insurance money on her life, then sold her to an unsuspecting buyer. And he's going to get away with his scheme, too. Unless someone can find Whirlwind. And that's exactly what Jas plans to do.

But hunting for Whirlwind is dangerous. Hugh has threatened to destroy everything Jas holds dear unless she stops her search. As she struggles with her desire to find Whirlwind without letting the people she loves get hurt, Jas must ask herself: Is all this worth risking for a horse she may never find?

I have heard repeatedly about the amazing Shadow Horse, Alison Hart's award nominated horsey mystery. For some reason, I never got around to reading it, even when I knew Whirlwind was right around the corner. After reading this, I'm making Shadow Horse a priority.

Because Whirlwind is pretty awesome.

Two months after the beginning of Shadow Horse, Jas is nearing the end of what is essentially court ordered house arrest. She's pretty obsessed with the idea that Whirlwind might still be alive, and so is the insurance company that Hugh Robicheaux has a history of scamming. Hugh, however, has no intention of being brought down, because people like him "always win." People like Jas have ankle monitors and live in mobile homes, like they're supposed to. Lucky for Jas, she's not about to accept anything that Hugh says, and uses just about every resource around her to marshal interest in finding Whirlwind.

Enter the insurance agency's investigator, M. Baylor. All of a sudden finding Whirlwind stops looking like a crapshoot and more of an actual possibility. Hugh knows it, too, and starts to threaten not only Jas, but Second Chance Farm. Hugh also knows more than he should, leading Jas to suspect there's a spy in their midst, but at a charity case rescue like Second Chance Farm, who could be feeding information to a man they all loathe?

There's illegal search and seizure, sexual tension, and murder.

There's even a hurricane.

It's awesome like that.

What I like about Whirlwind is that it's not just a horse book and it's not just a horse mystery. It's a young adult novel about a girl who's going through a lot, as well as trying to grow up. She's a barely fourteen-year-old kid taking care of her elderly grandfather, navigating a possible romance, and trying to take down the most influential man in town. It sounds like a lot for one girl and a rescue farm to tackle, but it's done with a gritty realism that had me immediately addicted.

Jas isn't a spoiled brat with horse ownership on the brain. She's human. She gets prickly and lashes out (usually at Chase, the boy she's in teenage love with, which never fails to amuse me), and she recognizes the need to apologize (usually to Chase, as it turns out) in order to remain a likable horse girl. And while she mostly lands in serious main character territory, she knows how to apply some humor into her life. She's also (dare I say it?) proactive. Nothing just randomly turns out in Jas's favor that she doesn't work hard for, something I think we can all appreciate.

Plus, she doesn't like Twilight. I mean, that alone is enough.

While this book does have a beautiful and satisfying ending, it leaves plenty of undeveloped plot for another sequel. I'll go ahead and say that I'm expecting this to be a second book in a trilogy. It may take another ten years to see it, but the potential is definitely there. In the meantime, Whirlwind is strong enough to stand on its own.

Overall: Totally worth your money. Go buy it.