Horse Dreams, Great Fiction for Elementary School Girls

Backyard Horses was exactly the series I was looking for for my daughters who love Jesus, love horses, and are in 3rd grade. The author also wrote a series for older readers called "Winnie the Horse Gentler" and I tried that first but I'd recommend it for middle school students and up. Besides being harder to read, those books sometimes deal with harder issues (like abortion). Backyard Horses, however, is written at around a 2nd/3rd grade reading level. Love, love, love this series!

My daughters love Ellie, the heroine of the story! There are so far 4 books in the series and we started with book 1 (this one) in order to read them, well, in order. The heroine of Horse Dreams, Ellie, is a sweet, oftentimes feisty, day-dreaming 4th grader. In this book, she often day-dreams about her own horse. She decides to do a "science" experiment... she'll "beg, cry, and pray" for a horse of her own and find out what way works best for getting horses. I don't think it's spoiling anything to say that God will answer her prayer... but in a different way than she imagined.

I highly recommend this book to elementary school children. It's filled with a good story, important lessons, and a little girl who puts her hope in God. I also highly recommend Cowboy Colt, Chasing Dream, and Nightmare, the others in the series. By the way, you can earn this book for free by participating in Tyndale's Summer Reading Program through the end of August!