Charley's Horse

Charley Rittenberg was in love with horses. Her room overflowed with horse books, and her herd of china horses, from Clydesdales to tiny Shetland ponies, danced on their own special shelf. She and her best friend Sally talked about horses nonstop. But real live horses? She’d never even met a single one. It didn’t matter. Once she found some kids to babysit, she could start riding lessons and her real life would begin. All of a sudden the world turned inside-out. Her parents started yelling, then clammed up and became scarily silent. Her dad stopped coming home at night. Charley and her brother were told they had to go away for the summer. They were being sent to camp. Charley wanted to stay home to keep the family together, but the lure of riding camp was hard to resist. She’d be around horses all day every day with girls who loved them as much as she did. And she would learn to ride. It would be heaven! It wasn’t. Firefly, Charley’s summer horse, hated her, the girls in her cabin thought she was a freak, and just sitting on a horse scared her silly. She longed to be home with her books, her friends, and her illusions, but home was a whole summer away. How was Charley going to survive eight weeks of horse camp hell? Would she ever learn to ride? Did she even want to? Horse-mad girls will love this book, and so will their mothers and grandmothers. Anyone who’s ever loved a horse will find a home in this honest and heartfelt coming-of-age story.