Home
  • Home
  • Latest Issue
  • Past Issues
  • Authors & Artists
  • Articles
  • Reviews
  • News
  • Forums
  • Search

Horse

  • View
  • Rearrange

Digital version – browse, print or download

Can't see the preview?
Click here!

How to print the digital edition of Books for Keeps: click on this PDF file link - click on the printer icon in the top right of the screen to print.

BfK Newsletter

Receive the latest news & reviews direct to your inbox!

BfK No. 171 - July 2008

Cover Story
This issue’s cover illustration by James Mayhew is from Katie and the British Artists. James Mayhew discusses his work here. Thanks to Orchard Books for their help with this July cover.

  • PDFPDF
  • Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version
  • Send to friendSend to friend

Horse

Malachy Doyle
 Angelo Rinaldi
(Simon & Schuster Children's UK)
32pp, 978-1416911036, RRP £7.99, Paperback
5-8 Infant/Junior
Buy "Horse" on Amazon

Rinaldi’s opening spread shows fields suddenly lit by a sun just out of view, barely penetrating the drifting clouds. A little further on, a mare appears in the field, belly heavy, and glowing, almost golden. This is the story of her foal, from the moment of his birth to the morning when, as a yearling, he wears a head collar for the first time and a girl leads him from the field to be trained to be ridden. Not that we see that process. Rather, we are granted a glimpse into an imagined future as the girl rides him in the sunset along the waterline of a deserted beach. This book is a companion piece to Cow, Doyle and Rinaldi’s earlier collaboration. Once again, the restraint of Doyle’s plain and simple text is accompanied by Rinaldi’s sumptuous painting, in which a precision of animal portraiture and movement is combined with an impressionistic richness of landscape and light. But there is a different mood here. While Cow had its hooves firmly in the mud of the farmyard and its udders ready for the milking parlour, Horse is more a glimpse into a young girl’s soft focus fantasy, going for the epic gesture – the horse alone on a rock, silhouetted against the sky, monarch of all he surveys; and the sentimental moment – girl and horse in close embrace. Hard to disagree with the blurb: ‘A stunningly beautiful book – perfect for all pony fans!’

Reviewer: 
Clive Barnes
4
  • About us
  • Contact us
  • Help/FAQ
  • My Account