"If A Horse Had Words" - a bookwrap

Unwrapping

"If a Horse Had Words"

By KELLY COOPER

Illustrated by LUCY ELDRIDGE

Age Range: 4 - 8 years

Grade Level: Preschool - 3

Available June 05, 2018.

Unwrapping some sweet illustrations for you to enjoy

About the book

Horse-lovers unite!  This book is for you.  

This delightful tale is about a foal that is born one spring morning and instantly becomes aware of her surroundings.  If she had words she would say willow, crocus, puddle and sky.  

This sweet foal while learning to stand on her own gets stuck in a muddy badger hole and needs the assistance of the ranch owner and his son to help pull her out and then up onto her feet.  She never, ever forgets that experience of feeling trapped.  It is a fearful one indeed. 

Time passes and she becomes more aware of her world and if she could express words for her observations:  for the seasonal changes  the word would be (seasons),  for when the boy calls her Red Badger (name),  for the gentle, loving touch and peppermint smell of the friendly boy (friend).

The time comes for Red Badger to be horse-broken, which means she needs to be tamed so someone can sit on her back and ride her.  The young boy puts a saddle on her and mounts up.  Unfortunately Red Badger is still full of fear thinking the ground is unstable beneath her and she may get stuck again! She becomes frightened and bucks the boy off landing him on the ground on his backside.  Oh my!  No!!!!

The boy's dad sees her reaction to her training session and decides that she is incapable of having a rider so he takes her to a local horse auction where he sells her to the highest bidder.  

She finds herself on a new farm and the time passes causing memories of her prior life fade. When Red Badger looks up at the sky she thinks of the boy and if a horse had the word it would be...  remember.

Fate smiles down on her (and the boy).  Miraculously they are reunited at a rodeo once again.  Will she allow her grown-up cowboy to ride her now?  

This heartfelt story has beautiful illustrations that enhance the narrative greatly.  It is told through the eyes of the horse and expresses the strong feelings of both the mare and the boy, now a man, towards each other.   That strong familial bond between them has never disappeared. If you are a horse-lover then you will truly enjoy this book. 

Storywraps Rating - 5 HUGS!!!!!

About the author 

  KELLY COOPER grew up in the tiny farming community of Senlac, Saskatchewan, where she vaccinated, branded and ear-tagged cattle, sorted calves on foot and on horseback, drove cattle to pasture on horseback and drove a tractor and a three-ton truck. Kelly later moved to New Brunswick and now lives on a dairy farm with one husband, two daughters, a hundred cows, many cats and two donkeys. Kelly has years of experience teaching language arts and visual arts and has worked with students of all ages. She has written for radio, and her poetry, short fiction and creative non-fiction have been published in a number of Canadian literary journals and several anthologies. She has previously published a collection of linked stories, Eyehill. This is her first book for children.

About the illustrator

  LUCY ELDRIDGE is a traditional artist who works primarily in watercolor and gouache to create beautiful, whimsical illustrations. She finds inspiration for her work from a variety of things, including pebbles found on the beach, biscuits, origami paper, dictionaries, maps, Chinese brush painting, clouds, trees, trinkets and cats. Lucy illustrated the middle-grade novel Welcome to Nowhere by Elizabeth Laird. This is her first picture book. She is based in Brighton, UK.

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