Marion Dane Bauer

Touch the Moon

Clarion Books/Ticknor & Fields (a Houghton Mifflin Company), New York, 1987, illus Alix Berenzy, 77 pp.

Dell Yearling, pb, 1989

Jennifer thought her father had promised her a real horse for her birthday:  she is furious when what she gets is a
china horse and riding lessons.  However, there is much more to the figurine than she thought: it makes the beautiful
golden palomino Moonseeker appear, and only Jennifer can see him. And indeed hear him, as he can talk. The
two then get stuck in a cave.

Marion Dane Bauer (1938- ) was born in the shadow of the Illinois cement mill where her father worked, and remembers her childhood as idyllic, though school became progressively more difficult:  she was an isolated child.  Life became easier as she matured, and she studied journalism and English; worked as a teacher and raised a family, and then decided to write seriously (she wrote as a child:  her first remembered composition was a poem in praise of her teddy bear).  She later became known for speaking out on homosexuality.  She is a prolific author for children, one of whose books, On My Honor  was a Newbery Honor Book.  She wrote just the one horse book, Touch the Moon, which is a fantasy in which a horse is able to talk.

Many thanks to Susan Bourgeau for all her help with this section.

Finding the book:  the book is easy to find in both hardback and paperback versions.  It was not published in the UK.
 

Sources and Links:

Marion Dane Bauer’s website

Scholastic Books on Marion Dane Bauer

An interview with Marion Dane Bauer

Harper Collins on Marion Dane Bauer

Bibliography - horse books only