Barbara Garland Polikoff

Riding the Wind

Henry Holt, New York, 1995, 131 pp.

Puffin, (USA) pb, 1967

The Sequel to Life’s a Funny Proposition, Horatio, this story is told by Angie.  She  dreams of owning an Arabian
horse called Lila.  The horse is injured by a newcomer to the town, and Angie finds this desperately hard to forgive.

Barbara Garland Polikoff (1929- ) has written biographies and fictional works aimed at teenagers,  Her first fictional work, Life’s a Funny Proposition, Horatio, about a boy whose father has died of lung cancer, was very well received, and had a Best Books Citation in the School Library Journal, 1992.  Its sequel, Riding the Wind, centres on Angie, who is desperate to own the Arab mare Lila.  This book wasn’t as well received as the first book, but still had favourable reviews.

Barbara Polikoff couldn’t, she said, remember a time when she wasn’t writing something.  She taught English, but found she couldn’t reconcile the time she needed to do it well with her writing, so left.  She works as a volunteer in a Chicago elementary school, teaching writing.  “At first, I taught because I loved it, but during the last decade an urgency has been added to that love and now I teach because I want to help inner city children gain the full and exciting use of language.”

Many thanks to Lisa Catz for the photograph.

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

Sources and links:

Reviews of the books

Biographical information on the author

Bibliography: horse books only