Silver Brumby Kingdom

Elyne Mitchell's Silver Brumby Kingdom is a collection of wild horse stories for 9 year olds, set among the brumby herds of the Australian mountains.

What happens

It opens with Moon Filly. One moonlit night, a golden chestnut stallion called Winganna brings three new mares back to his herd. One of them is dark, fine-boned and very ill, with a tiny brown filly stumbling at her side.

Wurring, the stallion's young son, can't stop himself walking out to meet them. When the mare dies, the orphaned filly follows him back to his own mother, who feeds them both. He names her Ilinga, because she came from far away.

What follows is the two of them growing up together through a mountain winter. They race through curtains of moss, gallop through falling snow and stand perfectly still to watch a lyrebird dance. The other colts get jealous. And somewhere in the scrub, an iron-grey stallion is watching.

This is a book to read slowly. Mitchell writes the mountains almost like poetry (snow gums, candlebarks, currawongs crying of snow) and the horses feel everything through every hair on their bodies. It's dreamy and mysterious and full of old legends about the sun and the moon. If your reader loves horses and big wild places, they'll be right up on the high plains with Wurring.

There's more than Moon Filly in here too. The collection also follows Baringa, the Silver Brumby's grandson, frantic to find his cream filly Dawn after a flood.

Be ready for some sadness early on, because these are wild animals and the book doesn't pretend otherwise. The dark mare dies in the first chapter, and her foal calls out for her in the night. Later, two stallions fight all night long, and the smell of blood and the screams are on the page. One of them doesn't survive. Afterwards the winner drives Ilinga off, biting and striking her to keep her moving.

For a child who finds animal death upsetting, that might be too much. For a reader who already understands that wild animals live hard lives, it's a beautiful, honest look at one.

What to read next

If they fall for the high country, try The Silver Brumby itself. It follows Thowra, a cream colt born in a wild spring storm, whose mother knows he'll have to be as fast as the wind to survive.