The Best Horse

by Elizabeth Van Steenwyk

Wendy has a risky plan to enter her horse in the Barrel Race event, even though her Mom has said she could not. She feels she must because he is the best, or so she thinks.

Genres: Horses, Childrens

91 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Elizabeth Van Steenwyk is the award-winning author of more than seventy published books for young people. After graduating from Knox College, she went on to spend ten years writing for radio and television with a concentration on children's programming. She lives in California.

Reviews

[Kerri · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely book about a young girl who wants to enter the barrel racing competition at her local rodeo. I always enjoy finding a horsey book that focuses more on Western riding. It's not that they are obscure, just there seem be masses about show jumping or racing, and less about this kind of thing.

This was sweetly written, with some well handled lessons along the way. There is a particular focus on the fact that you can't force someone to be what they aren't. This is reinforced in multiple ways, and I think it's a great message.

[Sarah B · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this horse book as I do love horses. It's the story of a young girl who dreams of entering her horse into a barrel race but her mother is against the idea. Through the course of the book the girl, Wendy, learns some lessons.

A few things stood out in this story to me:

1. The mother made the mistake of thinking the daughter was a carbon copy of herself. Children have their own minds and personalities.

2. The story teaches that not all horses are ideal for all horse related activities. Horses are just like humans in that each one has things they like to do. This is a really important lesson.

3. It teaches also that older horses are not worthless. I especially liked this one!

4. And this is the part that stood out to me the most while I was reading it. If you don't want your children to engage in horse related activities, don't raise them on a horse ranch! This last one should be common logic and that fact it was overlooked in the plot just amazes me. When a kid is living and breathing horses and all of their friends also have horses, it only going to be natural for them to want to enter the same rodeo events their friends are.

The book also teaches about lying and managing money...

[Stephanie Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorites in middle school, while I was in my horse crazy stage! I remember reading it over and over again.

[Rachel Gorham]

I read this book (as The Best Horse, not Barrel Horse Racer) over and over when I was maybe ten. My mother worked in a dentist's office and I spent plenty of afternoons in the waiting room after school because the bus didn't go to my house. (Mostly these afternoons were Mondays, because the library was closed on Mondays.) Anyway, this book was among the reading material in the office (along with a book of New Yorker cartoons that added the word "prostitute" to my working vocabulary in a moment that was simultaneously hilarious and very embarrassing to my poor mother, and a cookbook from which I got the recipe that I still use for cream-of-broccoli soup, among the usual piles of magazines). It is a very quick read at 90-ish pages of large print, and it had all the elements I wanted in a story at that age: Horses. Yeah that was the element, and everything else was just gravy. This book had horses and barrel racing and preteen rebellion and -- a spoon collection? -- and a hired hand named Lockjaw. I inhaled in like sweet perfumed oxygen and then it vanished from the office (I hope it was accidentally stolen by another ten-year-old girl who walked out reading it without fully being aware of what she was doing; I hope she didn't fall down the stairs on the way to the car) and I never saw it again.

As sometimes happens, it hung around in the back of my mind until one night in a fit of nostalgic book-stalking I FOUND it on the internet and bought a copy. It arrived in due time and I devoured the book in under an hour and it was like getting to hang out with my ten-year-old self again. This is not literary fiction; it's more like the kind of book that book fairs sell because if you dangle something that a child loves in front of her in the form of a book, maybe that child will learn to love reading. It gets fifty million stars for nostalgia, though.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first started reading this book, I quickly thought it was another book where the child disobeys their parent and everything works out alright in the end with no (or trite) apologies. I was wrong. While the child was prepared to disobey, she didn't. And the lie she did tell had repercussions. Of course, things still worked out alright in the end. Cute story, especially for horse loving, horse dreaming little girls.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book about 20 times when I was a kid, but it's not really as great as I remember it. I'm waiting to hear the daughter's opinion of it...

[Christine Meunier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wendy is a 12 year old who thinks the world of her sorrel gelding. In fact, she feels he’s the best in Colorado and will win at the local rodeo in the barrel racing. There’s one small obstacle in the way of Wendy’s desire – her mother’s insistence that she can’t enter. In the Best Horse, Wendy battles to train her gelding, raise the funds to enter the event and most importantly, to convince her mother.

Read more at http://equus-blog.com/the-best-horse-...

[Tania · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best Horse is a nice story about a young girl, Wendy, and her dreams of being a barrel racer. There is conflict between Wendy and her mom which is handled well. There is also some tension surrounding Wendy's training of her barrel horse. Wendy has to make some tough decisions, but ultimately she's rescued from some of them by adults who are watching out for her but trying not to interfere too quickly with her coming of age moments.

We get a glimpse of these adults in Wendy's life, but nothing in depth. Although there is talk about Wendy and her mom finally understanding each other, it's not altogether clear what we are supposed to understand. I would say this is written appropriately for the age group for which it's intended, and carries some good lessons for middle school children. Still, there could have been some further development done to flesh out the story.

[Karissa Talks Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual Rating: 3.5 Stars

This is a very cute coming-of-age novel for the protagonist. She realizes a lot about herself and her mother through the farmhand and her own horse. It's a book for preteen's, as it's short and very simply written. It also shows it's age in the writing, but I think it's a cute little read, especially for the horse lovers out there.

[Terri Kempton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not the best horse. And definitely not the best book.

[Rivkah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a super cute book about a want to be barrel racer with some relatable situations. A sweet read I would recommend to any horse lover/book lover.