Gosh, I loved this book! So much so, that I bought the next 40+ in the series! I can honestly say, the book, “A Horse Called Wonder” by Joanna Campbell, changed my life. I can think of other impactful books on my life – books like “Shiloh” and “A Walk to Remember” – but this book is where my love of reading and horses really took off.
I don’t remember how I got the first book, but my guess is it was at a Scholastic Book Fair at my school, but I do remember reading it over and over. I bet I read this first book 8 times and the other 40+ books in the series at least twice! As a horse-crazy girl, this book spoke to my soul. It fueled my love of horses ten fold and became one of my closest friends. Eventually, Indigo Books in the Cranbrook mall started bringing in the series and that’s where I spent every dollar I made. All my birthday money and lemonade stand sales went to buying the next book in the series. For Christmas, these books were at the top of my wish list. In the end, I had compiled a collection of over 40 books in the “Thoroughbred” series. Wikipedia tells me that the author continued to write more books and the series grew to 72 books in total (and if it’s on Wikipedia, it MUST be true!). I LOVED this book series and still remember the emotional roller coaster the author took me on as I fell in love with each horse.
As I grew, my desire for a horse of my own developed into a dangerous obsession. Being raised in the country, many neighbors had horses (most of which weren’t ridden regularly), and I would sneak over to their houses, catch their horses, and try to ride them. By the time I reached Grade 3, I had already been bucked off or fallen off 5 different horses, and usually I was alone when it happened. If I had any free time, I was darting out of the house to watch, brush, or ride someone’s horse! As I look back on my childhood, now that I’m a mother myself, I don’t know how (1) I survived and (2) how my mom tolerated me. I can’t imagine how frustrated and worried she must have been to see me hobbling through the back yard time and time again with another banged up elbow or grass stained knees.
Finally, in Grade 4 my Dad bought be a horse of my own. I remember sitting on the rails of the corral and reading chapter after chapter of these Thoroughbred books to my horse, Ritz. Thinking about those days brings a smile to my face. I don’t know if I’d ever been so completely happy.
To this day, I still LOVE horses. I cried last year when I sold my perfect, black quarter horse to help pay my tuition for school and still think of him often. Horses are still my happy place, and they are where I turn for peace.
As a teacher, I want each of my students to fall in love with a book the way I did as a child. My daughter, Kamry, fell in love with “The Magic Tree House” series, but I’m still struggling to find a book that touches my other two children, Grady and Blakely. This weekend I finished reading “The Hatchet” by Gary Paulsen. It was my first time reading it, but I know it has been a favorite of many young boys for a long time. I want to get to know more children’s novels, so I will be better prepared to help my students find the right book. In the past several months, I’ve listened to or read “Pippi Longstocking,” a few Ronald Dahl books, “Pathki Nana,” “Fatty Legs,” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” I’m now working my way through “The Wizard of Oz” and have plans to read “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.” I hope that as a class, we will all share the books that “changed everything” for us, so I can add to my collection of great books.
