Soon after she leaves, she meets Silvio Hernandez, a Hispanic boy her own age who is heading to California to work and send money back to his family and a friendly man named Mr. Bennett. Both encourage her to return home; Silvio's own father is dead and Mr. Bennett treats her in a kindly and fatherly manner. The ending is very much along the lines of wish-fulfillment, rather than following the more realistic history of the time period; Ginny returns home, survives "dust pneumonia" and her father agrees to keep her horse, as well as his own dream of refusing to leave their family farm. However, all is well because Mr. Bennett appears and turns out to be from the government and there to help everyone. The story ends with a fireside chat from Franklin Roosevelt and much hope for the future.
There is a note of diversity in the inclusion of Silvio, and the prejudice he faces is mentioned briefly, but this is otherwise a very typical white-focused historical fiction title. For more inclusive and realistic perspectives, I would recommend the I am America series from Jolly Fish Press. However, there is definitely a market for beginning chapters focused on horse and a dearth of historical fiction for this age group, so this is sure to find an audience, despite its approach to the subject.
Verdict: Whether or not you purchase this will depend on your library audience; if you have a lot of patrons who like traditional, "easy" views of history and young readers looking for horse stories, have already purchased more inclusive and realistic titles to balance your collection, and are looking to make additional purchases, this might be a reasonable choice for your library.
2 comments:
The Jolly Fish series has a lot of interesting titles. I looked at this, but usually need horse books that are a bit older. And not historical. Do love a good Dust Bowl tale, though.
Yeah, I bought these b/c I have an audience for them - Magic Tree House fans and a lot of homeschoolers. I have the Jolly Fish Press titles too, but of course they don't really circ as much. Like adults, kids usually prefer feel-good stories and realistic historical fiction doesn't often make for those!
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