Rosies Magic Horse - Softcover

Russell Hoban is the renowned author of many acclaimed novels for grown-ups, including Turtle Diary and Riddley Walker, which won the John W. Campbell Award for science fiction. He once described himself as "an addict to writing" and wrote more than 50 books for children, including such classics as Bedtime for Frances, How Tom Beat Captain Najork, The Mouse and His Child, and The Sea-Thing Child. Born in Pennsylvania in 1925, he moved in 1969 to London, where he lived until his death in 2011. Quentin Blake is one of the world's foremost illustrators, best known for his collaboration with writers such as Russell Hoban, Michael Rosen and, most famously, Roald Dahl. His books have won numerous prizes and awards, including the Whitbread Award, the Kate Greenaway Medal and the 2002 Hans Christian Anderson Award for Illustration, the highest recognition internationally available to creators of children's books. In 1999 he was appointed the first ever Children's Laureate, He was appointed an OBE in 1988, and subsequently was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2005 New Year's Honours List for services to Children's Literature, is an RDI and has numerous honorary degrees from universities throughout the UK. He received a knighthood for 'services to illustration' in the New Year's Honours for 2013, and became an Honorary Freeman of the City of London in 2015. He is a Trustee of The House of Illustration, a centre in London for exhibitions, educational events and an activity related to the art of illustration.

Rosie finds a discarded ice-pop stick and adds it to the others collected in her cigar box. Drawn with expressive little faces, the sticks discuss what they can be without their ice pops. Maybe a horse, muses the new stick. Meanwhile, Rosie overhears her parents say that they can’t pay their bills. Longing to help, she falls asleep and dreams of Stickerino, a flying, talking horse that gallops out of the cigar box and takes her on a treasure hunt. The next morning, Rosie surprises her dad with a chest full of gold. While the story has all the improbability of a child’s own fantasy, the telling is lively, and the artwork is captivating. When the clock strikes midnight and rises into the air carrying Rosie on its back, the book soars into realms of imagination and hope. Blake’s expressive ink drawings with watercolor washes depict, with equal conviction, parents discussing the family’s troubles, Stickerino soaring over distant lands, and pirates lining up at an ice-cream cart. A playful, picture-book confection for imaginative children. Preschool-Grade 2. --Carolyn Phelan