Silver Brumby Echoing

Elyne Mitchell's Silver Brumby Echoing is a collection of Australian mountain horse stories for 9 year olds, and it opens with a tiny foal who dances.

What happens

It holds the final five Silver Brumby books. They're Dancing Brumby, Brumbies of the Night, Dancing Brumby's Rainbow, The Thousandth Brumby and Wild Echoes Ringing.

The first story belongs to Choopa. He's the very last foal of an old roan mare called Dandaloo, and he comes out all colours. Blue roan, with big white blotches all over and round each eye. He's far too small, his head's too big and his legs swing out sideways when he walks.

Dandaloo loves him fiercely. She's frightened for him too. She's seen a stallion kill a misshapen foal before, so she hides Choopa away from the herd in a secret creek among the candlebarks.

And Choopa doesn't grow. He just doesn't. What he does instead is dance!

Young kangaroos and wallabies come to watch, and wombats, and a baby echidna. They make a ring of shining eyes around him. When Choopa trips on those wobbly legs, he tucks his head under like the echidnas and turns the fall into a perfect somersault. The honeyeater gives him his name, "Choopa, the Little Lizard".

Reading it feels a bit like the bush is telling you the story. Lyrebirds, mopokes and a giant glider pass news of the dancing foal from tree to tree, until the silver stallions come down to see for themselves. It's slow and dreamy, and it's full of Australian names for plants and birds that your reader might want to look up (bossiaea, anyone?).

Danger does come. Men ride in with lassos to catch brumbies, and a blazing fireball sets the bush alight. Dandaloo and her little tribe shelter from the fire in a cave, and afterwards they pass a kangaroo dying from its burns. That's a sad moment for a child who's soft on animals, but it's brief and gently told.

If you've got a reader who likes animals that feel like real characters, and quiet stories rather than noisy ones, this is lovely.

What to read next

If your reader would like to go right back to the beginning, you'll find the first Silver Brumby book here as well. That's where Thowra is born on a stormy spring night, alongside a bright bay colt called Storm.