Dandi Mackall’s Horse Gentler in Training is a ranch story for 6 year olds about a girl who wants to be as good with horses as her mum is.<\/p>\n
Winnie Willis is eight. Her family board and gentle horses on a Wyoming ranch, and her mum is so good at it that Winnie reckons you’d think she was a horse herself. Other people break horses, sometimes cruelly. The Willises don’t.<\/p>\n
More than anything on earth, Winnie wants to be a horse gentler too.<\/p>\n
The trouble turns up in green trousers. Mr Green has boarded a champion Thoroughbred called Royal Princess at the ranch and would like her sorted out by yesterday. His son Austin tiptoes up behind her, nearly gets kicked, and calls her a stupid horse.<\/p>\n
Winnie is certain she can catch Princess. She whistles the way her mum whistles. Princess lets her get one hand from the halter, then gives a whinny that sounds a lot like a laugh and canters off. Austin laughs too.<\/p>\n
At school on Monday, Austin tells the whole class that the Willises took his father’s money and can’t do the job. And Winnie, who is furious, announces that she rides Princess.<\/p>\n
She doesn’t. Not yet.<\/p>\n
The whole book is Winnie’s voice, in short bursts, with a running thread of notes to herself. Note to self, there is only one horse gentler at this ranch and it isn’t Winnie. It’s a funny and very honest way in for a reader who knows what it feels like to say something bigger than you can back up and then have to live inside it.<\/p>\n
There’s proper horse knowledge in here too. Where a horse can and can’t see. Why you groom before you ride. Winnie works out what breed everyone would be, so her teacher is a frisky Welsh pony and the school bus driver is a moody Shetland who might buck without warning.<\/p>\n
Two things to know before you start. Winnie does get on that horse, and she does come off it, and there’s a trip to hospital and an arm in a sling. And this is an openly Christian book. The family pray at the table and mid-conversation, Winnie’s little sister answers most worries with nothing is impossible with God, and Winnie’s guilt about her boast is partly guilt about lying to him. If that’s your household it’ll be a warm read. If it isn’t, it’s woven in rather than added on, so it isn’t something you can skim past.<\/p>\n
The chapters are very short and the whole story is told, which suits a reader who has just started managing a book on their own.<\/p>\n
If a horse’s own opinion is the draw, Cinders tells her own story. She’s a Percheron foal raised by two farm girls who plait flowers into her mane, until the day the farmer tells her that he has his space and she has hers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dandi Mackall’s Horse Gentler in Training is a ranch story for 6 year olds about a girl who wants to be as good with horses as her mum is. Winnie Willis is eight. Her family board and gentle horses on a Wyoming ranch, and her mum is so good at it that Winnie reckons you’d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":11408,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":7687,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Cinders tells her own story","lr_seo_hook":"A girl who says she can ride the champion, then has to prove it."},"book_tag":[18],"age_group":[31],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[225],"class_list":["post-9763","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-animal-books","age_group-books-for-6-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-dandi-mackall"],"yoast_title":"Winnie, The Early Years – Horse Gentler in Training by Dandi Mackall | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A girl who says she can ride the champion, then has to prove it. For ages 6+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n