When the owners of the stable where sixteen-year-old Hattie works plan to put down her favorite old horse, Speed, Hattie and her best friend, Delores, decide the old guy deserves one last chance for real freedom. Towing the stolen horse in an illicitly borrowed trailer, the girls drive west from New Hampshire, planning to set him free on federal lands so that the docile animal who’s spent his life submitting to human demands finally has one last chance “to live like a horse should live,” as Hattie puts it. On their road trip, the girls duck intrusive parents, make new friends, care for the declining Speed, and, eventually, encounter some cowboys in Minnesota who know a place that may be just the paradise for Speed that Hattie is seeking. Monninger, author of Baby (BCCB 9/07) and Hippie Chick (BCCB 10/08), is the best YA writer going when it comes to the human-animal connection, and he articulately honors Hattie’s devotion to Speed and her enrapturement with horses in general. Yet he’s as kind to humans as to other animals, eschewing villains (Speed’s owners aren’t actually wrong about Speed’s condition, and they forgive Hattie, as does her worried mother) and offering moments of grace as the girls encounter kindly folks on their trip. The road trip is captured in all its relationship glory, the rhythms of solid friendship deftly conveyed as the girls talk about things small and large in the intimacy of the truck cab (“We’re women going west” is their purposeful motto). Horse lovers will relate to the girls’ pilgrimage, but readers don’t have to be animal aficionados to appreciate the transformative quality of a journey with a best friend.
A WILD HORSE AT LAST
REVIEW by ANGELA LEEPER
After years of patiently being ridden by countless children at fairs, Speed the horse no longer lives up to his name. The night before his current owners have arranged to put him down due to his age and loss of spirit, 16-year-old Hattie Wyatt, Speed’s hired caretaker, kidnaps the horse from his New Hampshire farm. With her older friend, Delores, at the wheel and a “borrowed” horse trailer in tow, the girls set out on a life-changing westward road trip to find a rangeland established by the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, which will allow Speed to finally be a true horse.
Author Joseph Monninger creates a visceral experience, capturing the smells of living with horses and life on the road and the sights and feel of open land. Interspersed with playful banter, introspection and even a touch of romance, the girls’ journey is just as important as reaching their final destination as they each realize that they need a fresh start as much as Speed. While impulsive Hattie begins to wonder about the course of her life after the road trip, depression-prone Delores makes plans to reconnect with her absent biological father.
The highlight, of course, is the thrilling and bittersweet release of Speed and the anticipation of how he will adjust to his new surroundings and other wild horses. Finding Somewhere will appeal most strongly to horse fans (“Once you like horses, you can’t get them out of your head.”), but readers who enjoy stories of friendship will also appreciate Hattie and Delores’ fierce bond.
