The Fire Pony - Softcover

Rodman Philbrick is the author of six award-winning novels for young readers. His first novel, Freak the Mighty, won the California Young Reader Medal. It was received with great acclaim and has sold more than a million copies. The sequel, Max the Mighty, received starred reviews, and his novel The Fire Pony was named a 1996 Capital Choice. His more recent books for the Blue Sky Press are REM World; The Last Book in the Universe, which was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults; and The Young Man and the Sea, which received a starred review from School Library Journal. He and his wife live in Maine and the Florida Keys.

Grade 4-7?Young orphaned Roy and his arsonist adult brother, Joe Dilly, are heading West, fleeing an earlier arson scene and looking for work on a horse ranch. At the Bar None, they find a place where they can avoid the law and earn their keep. Roy can also earn a pony, if he can break her. Lady is a beautiful, wild palomino that has already stolen his heart, but even if she lets him ride her, he worries that Joe Dilly's uncontrollable emotions and fascination with fire will destroy all of his hopes and force them to move on yet again. Philbrick discloses just the right amount of detail about Joe Dilly's fires to create concern for young Roy and draw readers into the story. Roy's first-person description blends smoothly into authentic dialogue with a Western accent. The characters are fully developed, showing both strengths and weaknesses. However, the "horse whisperer" effect Joe Dilly has on totally unmanageable horses is a bit far-fetched. Some of the horses' behaviors are equally unrealistic, as when Joe Dilly rides a crazy stallion bareback through the side of a burning barn. But the story on the whole has plenty of action and suspense and is a good choice for encouraging reluctant readers.?Christina Linz, Alachua County Library District, Gainesville, FL
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.