The Horse Who Carries the Stars

With the Middle Grade market in a current slump – poor sales, fewer readers, celebrity authors spreading like Japanese knotweed – it’s nice to know there are still authors out there just telling stories. Darby Karchut’s books won’t change the world. They don’t tackle the issues of the day. They’re just good stories. Sometimes with boys in the lead. Sometimes with girls. And sometimes – although the author herself might disagree with me – with talking Andalusian war horses fighting cave-dwelling monsters in Colorado’s Sangre de Cristo mountains, (in her excellent Del Toro Moon series).

The Horse Who has a likeable lead: a 13-year-old girl staying with her grandparents who’s worried that her parents might be breaking up, and that the Appaloosa she’s responsible for might be taken away if she can’t control it.

It won’t change the world. It tackles no current issues.* It’s just a good story, one that young readers anywhere, especially horse-lovers, should enjoy on every page. And it has an ending that is pure skin-prickling magic.

 

*Just to be clear: I’m not attacking such stories. It’s great they’re out there, upending expectations and tackling subjects previously ignored or just shooshed away under the carpet. Keep them coming. Just don’t forget a simple good story.