Dandi Daley Mackall

Dandi Daley Mackall
Winnie the Horse Gentler 1: Wild Thing - Tyndale Kids, £1.99
Rating:  ««««

This is an American book, part of a series of eight titles. The title is not, I have to admit, one that filled me with a lot of confidence. It sounds like something Jill's mother, Mrs Crewe, author of such gems as Barbie Brightsides, would have written. Added to that, my acquaintance with the Horse Healer genre so far, in the shape of the Heartland series, hasn't been overwhelmingly positive.

There are similarities with Heartland, which predates it by a couple of years - both have heroines who have lost their mothers, which they see as their fault.  Both have that Magic Touch With A Horse Which No One Else Does. They have some difficult family relationships.   Winnie is, however, nowhere near as storm prone as Heartland’s Amy:  she is sparky and on occasions funny (does Heartland ever do humour?) and she is believable.

Both books though do have an agenda. Heartland's is a marketing one, rather than a literary one. It's written to appeal to the widest possible number of teenage girls and present them with wish fulfilment. The Horse Healer series also has an agenda, but it's a Christian one.

Don’t though think this book is not necessarily for you:  I found the bits of the book where faith is mentioned entirely believable.. Although Winnie's gradual recovery of faith is important to the book, there is far, far more about her relationships with her sister and her father, and with the new people she meets in Ohio, and of course plenty of action with Wild Thing, the Arabian mare. All of these relationships change over the course of the book.

The story itself is a fairly conventional one: girl meets horse, overcomes its trouble and off we go into the sunset, but the book does place Winnie in a slightly more unusual situation than normal. After her mother's death, Winnie's father cannnot stand to be in the same place for long, and they have moved five times. Winnie and Lizzie are desperate to try and put down some roots and not move again, and this insecurity is the focus of the story.

The characters are generally believable, though the villains of the piece, the Spidells have a distinct whiff of the pantomime about them.  I hope that in further books the Spidells are allowed to grow a few half-way decent traits, or at least show some movement towards realising there is a different way, even if they turn away from it.

The other quibble I had with the book was the time limit Winnie has in which to gentle the mare: a week. I lost a bit of belief here: I find it difficult to believe that an Arabian mare who is described as basically bonkers, unapproachable by all (except for Winnie of course, and then only with care) is going to turn right round in a week, but I suppose anything is possible. It's just not very likely.

Despite that, I liked my first taste of this series. The book works as a story. It's well told. It's certainly an excellent antidote to the shop-till-you-drop antics in Chestnut Hill.

Dandi Daley Mackall has written an epic number of books:  over 400, covering the spectrum of writing from board books for toddlers to adult  fiction.  Her first taste of writing success came when she won a competition at the age of 10, on why she wanted to be a batboy for the Kansas City A’s.  Alas the team wouldn’t let a girl do such a thing.  

She has written two horse series: the first, Horsefeathers, is set in Horsefeathers Stable.  Like her other series, Winnie the Horse Gentler, it has a horse whispering theme.  Horsefeathers I haven’t yet read, but I like the Winnie series.  It wears its Christianity lightly on the whole.  

Dandi Daley Mackall’s website

Winnie the Horse Gentler

Wild Thing, 2002

Eager Star, 2002

Bold Beauty, 2002
Midnight Mystery, 2002

Unhappy Appy, 2003

Gift Horse, 2003

Friendly Foal, 2004

Buckskin Bandit, 2008
 

Winnie the Horse Gentler website

Horsefeathers

Horsefeathers!, 2000

Horse Cents!, 2000

Horse Whispers in the Air, 2000

A Horse of a Different Color, 2000
All the King’s Horses, 2001
Horse Angels, 2000

Home is where your Horse is, 2000

A Horsefeather’s Mystery, 2001

Starlight Animal Rescue
Two of these are about horses:

Runaway

Dark Horse (which also involves the characters from Winnie)

Horse Files: A Horse Lover’s Guide (non fiction)