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Two 1980s Horse Girl Books Face Off
Will The Horse that Came to Breakfast or Maggies Wish win?
I’m doing something a little bit different this week. I’ve been going through my bookshelves to determine what to keep and get rid of. If it’s a book I don’t really remember very well, I’m re-reading it to help decide. As a person born in the 1980s, I just so happened to have two middle grade horse girl books first published in the 1980s on the shelf. I didn’t remember anything about them. So I re-read both of them. Each re-read took about an hour. Let’s get into it.
First up we have The Horse that Came to Breakfast by Marilyn D. Anderson, first published in 1987. I picked this one up first because how could I not with that title? I was intrigued! The first sentence didn’t exactly draw me in because it referred to their home as a “house trailer.” I grew up with friends who lived in trailer parks, and my dad lived in one in the last few years of his life. I’ve never heard anyone call them a “house trailer.” The only thing I can think, based on the strong horse presence in the rest of the book, was the author mainly thought of horse trailers when she heard the word trailer and so thought she needed to differentiate. But really it’s the other way around. Trailer (where people live) and horse trailer (what you use to move horses).
Anyway, the basic plot of this book is that this little girl really wants a horse but her parents just got divorced, her dad is now completely out of the picture, her mom had to move them to a trailer, and money is very tight. But one day (in literally the first page of the book) a horse shows up in their yard. It’s a miracle! But her mom points out this horse must have an owner and makes her look for it. It turns out the horse is from a struggling horse riding instruction place. The little girl ends up collecting cans on the side of the road to pay for lessons on the horse. There’s a mean girl who shouldn’t get to ride the horse. The horse’s life is in danger. The little girl has to save him. Etc…
While I was skeptical of this book at first, it really did draw me in. In spite of certain aspects being dated (like how often this little girl was completely unsupervised and doing things like collecting cans along the side of the road or performing chores for random strangers she just met), the overall plot was thoughtful and heartwarming. There was no judgment of her mother for the divorce or the current financial situation, but it also empathically depicted how difficult it can be for kids to adjust to new life situations. It also highlighted caring for your neighbors and building a sense of community. Plus, there’s a happy ending for the girl and the horse. What more can you ask for?
Next up is Maggie’s Wish, first published in 1984. I’ll be honest. I didn’t notice until right now that the author is the same as for The Horse that Came to Breakfast! It felt like two totally different people wrote these books.
The basic plot of this one is that Maggie lives on a working farm with her mom and dad. She’s been asking for a pony to no avail. But one day her dad says the farm is getting something she’s going to really enjoy. She thinks it’s going to be a pony but it turns out to be two large draft horses for working the farm. The dad thinks this will be more fun than tractors. Maggie is disappointed but grows to love the draft horses only for her dad to sell them and ultimately buy her a pony.
The overall message of this book was bizarre. I’m still not sure what it was. Only when you learn to love the disappointing thing will you get what you really wanted? Don’t worry, when your father makes one poor financial decision he’ll continue to make them meaning you’ll ultimately get your pony one day? The family in this have a not great dynamic. The mother is kind of constantly making fun of the father. Of course, it’s a little hard to blame her for being frustrated when he really is making poor financial decisions with the family business without consulting her (his business partner) at all first. But those conversations should be had away from the daughter and not through passive-aggressive comments. I’m also having a hard time understanding how a farmer in 1984 could possibly think using two draft horses would be better than using a tractor. There’s also a scene where the dad spanks his daughter and her cousins (not his own kids) for running off unsupervised and almost getting hurt when he sends the dog to find them who then spooks a cow who almost runs them over. If you know you have a farm with cows who are spooked by dogs and you’re not sure where the children are, why would you send a dog after them? I understand spanking had a different cultural understanding in the 1980s but it’s hard to sympathize with the dad here when he was at least partially responsible for the whole near death experience.
The winner is…..
The Horse that Came to Breakfast! This is the one I decided to keep. Maggie’s Wish went to the local Little Free Library.
This is a great example of how one author can grow and change over time. Anderson’s characters acted with much more logic, even when making mistakes, in her later book. The overall plot was also more complex with elements I didn’t get into for the sake of space here. The message was clear and sound, backed up by memorable characters and intertwining plots. Maybe if the first book you pick up by an author is from early in their career, consider picking up one of the later books just to see.
Somewhat infuriatingly, I will note when I went to get the purchase links, Maggie’s Wish is available both digitally and as new printings. But The Horse that Came to Breakfast is only available as used vintage copies. Why? Why?
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Length The Horse that Came to Breakfast: 96 pages – novella/short nonfiction
Length Maggie’s Wish: 96 pages – novella/short nonfiction
Buy The Horse that Came to Breakfast (Amazon, not available on Bookshop.org)
Buy Maggie’s Wish (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
Source: I’ve owned both books since childhood.
Book Review: The Only One Left by Riley Sager
A Gothic chiller about a young caregiver assigned to work for a woman accused of a Lizzie Borden-like massacre decades earlier.
Summary:
Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.
It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer—I want to tell you everything.
As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.
Review:
I’m from New England so grew up with the Lizzie Borden jump-rope rhyme, and I’m a long-time fan of Riley Sager’s works. So I put myself on the hold list for this at my library as soon as the title was announced. Sager’s works play with thriller tropes. This one is more of a loose play. Ever since the original murders people have debated whether or not she was actually the murderer. So that’s what is at play here – how we treat others when the evidence points toward them but not conclusively enough for a sentencing.
For the majority of the book, I thought I had the murderer figured out, and not too many twists happened. the majority of the twists come in a giant pile right at the end. That said, I was partially right about what I thought from the beginning. I wasn’t 100% there, but I was partially there. I wanted to be slightly more surprised than I was. Although the pile of twists at the end did increase my satisfaction regardless.
The 1983 setting was a little weakly done. It felt more like a plot device to avoid the inconvenience of cell phones and characters texting each other than a true love letter to the 1980s. The 1980s was like sprinkles on top instead of what the story was built upon. I also personally didn’t understand why Kit was so afraid of a bed-bound elderly woman. Even assuming she had committed three murders decades ago. A murderer who has been bed-bound for decades and is now elderly is nothing to be afraid of. So the fear factor was lower for me.
One thing that annoyed me was the murder jump-rope rhyme in the book. The cadence was off, making it impossible to actually chant properly for a jump-rope game. This is easily seen in the first two lines. The Lizzie Borden one is this:
Lizzie Borden took an axe
Gave her mother forty whacks
Each line is precisely 7 syllables long, plus the accents come every other syllable and in both lines the strong syllable comes first.
LIZzie BORden TOOK an AXE
GAVE her MOTHer FORty WHACKS
In contrast, this is the first two lines of the jump-rope rhyme written for this book:
At seventeen Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope
The first line is 8 syllables, and the second one is 7. The second one’s accents work, but the first line’s don’t.
at SEVenTEEN leNORa HOPE
HUNG her SISter WITH a ROPE
It just simply doesn’t work as a jump-rope rhyme because jump-rope rhymes start with a strong syllable, and the lines are the same length as each other. They’re meant for keeping rhythm for the jumpers and the turners. Children on a schoolyard would have changed it to make it work, even if it meant changing a detail to be inaccurate. For example:
SIXteen OLD leNORa HOPE
HUNG her SISter WITH a ROPE
This makes it even more like the Lizzie Borden rhyme, in fact, because that one is slightly inaccurate for the sake of the rhyme scheme. It was Lizzie’s stepmother who was killed, not her mother.
In any case, the rhyme is repeated a lot in the book, and always at least the first line, and it made me cringe every time it came up.
The thriller itself was still quite enjoyable anyway but it would have jumped up to remarkable with this issue fixed and a more thoroughly shocking twist. A fun new read from a popular thriller author.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 385 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Library
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
Book Review: Deeper than the Dead by Tami Hoag (Series, #1) (Bottom of TBR Pile Challenge)
Summary:
When four children stumble upon the displayed body of a dead woman, they and their teacher are pulled into the investigation. But when this murder is connected to others, that makes it a potential serial killer, and that means the FBI wants to get involved. Quietly. Of course, it’s only 1985, the edge of modern forensics, so they must pursue their murderer with a combination of science and old-fashioned detective work.
Review:
I wish I could remember how this thriller made it into my TBR Pile. It’s a unique entry into the serial killer/forensics sector of the genre due to the time period Hoag chose to set it in. She states in her author’s introduction that she wanted to set her thriller in the 80s due to a personal nostalgia for the time but only after starting her research did she realize what an important time period it was for forensics. I think it’s yet another example of an author following her interests and getting a unique work out of it.
The plot alternates perspectives between the four children, their teacher, the older FBI agent on the case, and the killer (without revealing who the killer is), all in the third person. The changing perspectives help keep the plot complex and moving, as well as give us multiple plausible theories on who the killer is. That said. I was still able to predict the killer, and I honestly felt the killer to be a bit stereotypical.
The serial killings themselves are all of young women who either are currently at or have recently left the local halfway house. The murder/torture methods are sufficiently grotesque without going over the top. Fans of the genre will be satisfied.
The characters are a bit two-dimensional, particularly the older FBI agent, the young cop on the force, and all of the murder suspects. I also, frankly, didn’t appreciate the fact that an expert in the field calls one of the mothers a crazy borderline. She was presented as entirely the flat, evil representation of people with BPD that we problematically see in the media. This is why writing two-dimensional characters can be problematic. We only see the woman being overly dramatic and demanding. We never see her softer or redeeming qualities. I’d have less of a problem with this presentation of this woman with BPD in the book if it was a first person narration or a third person narration that maintained one perspective. Then it could be argued that this is that one character’s perception of the woman. But given that multiple perspectives are offered, presenting so many people in a two-dimensional way is rather inexcusable, and it’s irresponsible to write mental illness in this way. I’m not saying every character with a mental illness needs to be written in a positive light, but they should be written as three-dimensional human beings, not monsters (with, perhaps, the exception of sociopathy).
This is a book, then, with an interesting idea and fairly good plot but shaky characterization. Some people don’t mind that in their thrillers. I admit I speed-read, eager to find out who the killer was. But I also was bothered by the flatness of the characters. If you think this won’t bother you, then you will probably enjoy this book. Those with a mental illness should be warned that the representation of mental illness in the book could be upsetting or triggering.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: PaperBackSwap
Movie Review: Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)
Summary:
It looks like a meteor has crashed near a small town, but it actually is a space ship. A space ship that looks exactly like a giant circus tent. Oh, and did I mention that it’s full of aliens that look like deformed clowns armed with guns that shoot cotton candy that wraps its victims up into cocoons? Facing off against these creatures are a teenage gal, her current flame, and the cop who used to date her. Will anyone in the town survive the night?
Review:
Confession. I used to be deathly afraid of clowns. We’re talking 5 year old me would instantaneously cry upon merely seeing one at a distance. Although I’m mostly over that now, I was a bit nervous that watching a clown horror movie would stir things back up. Well, I definitely wouldn’t call this a horror movie.
It is the perfect blend of ridiculousness and horror tropes that it takes to make a deliciously campy horror film. I found myself laughing throughout and delighted at the various directions the writers took traditional circus elements to make them dangerous and evil.
There’s popcorn that turns into evil clown heads (but only after being in a dark space). People are turned into pods of cotton candy that hang ominously inside the ship. The balloon animals come to life and are evil. To someone who always found the circus a bit….odd….it’s totally delightful.
The movie also has its own theme song that is still earworming me days later. The song, clothes, and acting are all wonderfully 80s. From the main girl’s hair to the grouchy cop to the teens running an ice cream truck in an attempt to get girls, it gets just the right combination of elements that screams–this is why the 80s was awesomely weird.
If you appreciate camp, the 80s, or light horror, you’ll enjoy this film.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
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