April 8, 2008

The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses

By Paul Goble 

The 1979 Caldecott Medal winner, with good reason.  The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses makes an impression.  The title or a glimpse of one of the figures inside is enough to elicit “aah!”s of recognition from most children and young adults.  The illustrations here are so bold and true that I’ve always wished I could have them, life-sized, on my walls, and live in them.  It’s like they’re too beautiful to be shut up inside a book.  

 I hadn’t thought about this book for years, or honestly much about illustrated books at all, but in the summer ‘04 I found myself reading it now and then to children on a guest ranch. Often I’d read it before bedtime on the night that we slept out in the meadow with the kids.  The frightening storm, which stampedes the girl’s wild horse friends and carries her far from her family, was something of a cathartic moment — as night gathered around us, as the coyotes made their music, many kids’ resolve to sleep outdoors could be shaken.  Then the sun rises, the land is bright, and the horses are still by her.  When we wake in the morning, the horses are grazing on the dewed grass in the big pasture, and we journey up the hill to breakfast, families, the journey home.  From fear of nature to the confidence of being a little more at home there, the journey of The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses, and of a few dozen very lucky children.  

From Paul Goble’s The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses I love the botanically/zoologically correct illustrations, and how those distinctive western plants and animals, sometimes some rock or water, evoke an entire landscape and sense of place. You could give good exercise to a wildflower guide, a bird guide, a butterfly guide identifying each of the species so carefully portrayed. Then there are the attitudes. Yes, colts stand just that way, even if the shape here is stylized. Older bison turn around to look at young ones. Yes. Doesn’t it strike you right?

From Paul Goble’s The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses

I love the botanically/zoologically correct illustrations, and how those distinctive western plants and animals, sometimes some rock or water, evoke an entire landscape and sense of place. You could give good exercise to a wildflower guide, a bird guide, a butterfly guide identifying each of the species so carefully portrayed.

Then there are the attitudes. Yes, colts stand just that way, even if the shape here is stylized. Older bison turn around to look at young ones. Yes. Doesn’t it strike you right?

“ The tired horses slowed and then stopped and rested. Stars came out and the moon shone over hills the girl had never seen before. She knew they were lost.
From Paul Goble’s The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses