This gorgeous, resonant tale is a sweet recollection from Holly's childhood about her love affair with horses. When Holly's family moves from the city to the countryside, she's scared of this new world at first - but gradually comes to loves the animals she encounters and draws the horses in the local pastures obsessively, hinting to her parents what she wants more than anything. When she finds a bike in the barn for her birthday instead of a horse, she learns to love what is hers no matter what could've been. Written with a lighthearted touch and a bucolic sense of the countryside, Holly has tapped into a rich and nostalgic look that hearkens back to the artwork that first made her famous decades ago.

 

There are 32 pages in this book. This is a picture book. A picture book uses pictures and text to tell the story. The number of words varies from zero ('wordless') to around 1k over 32 pages. Picture books are typically aimed at young readers (age 3-6) but can also be aimed at older children (7+). This book was published 2010 by Little, Brown & Company .

Holly Hobbie has worked as an artist for more than thirty years and is the author of ten previous and highly acclaimed Toot & Puddle picture books, as well as an illustrated memoir, The Art of Holly Hobbie.