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A Horse for X.Y.Z.
Louise Moeri

Statistics:
Copyright 1977
120 pages
ISBN: 0590300393
Young Adult
Out of Print
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Horse connection:
(western) A girl at camp realizes one of the horses is a stolen race horse.

Description:
Solveig Nilsson is longing to be named Xenia Yseult Zilch, so that she can be the last person on the bus taking everyone back to school from camp, when she decides to slip off the bus to take a ride on the gorgeous horse she'd longed to ride. But when she returns, instead of the bus and an angry schoolmistress, she finds four angry men and a gun looking for Snake Dancer.

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painfully inaccurate   [login to vote]   detailed and exquisitely accurate

4.00 Rating, 4 Votes

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minimal or background   [login to vote]   horsey

4.25 Rating, 4 Votes

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waste of time   [login to vote]   worth a worldwide search

3.75 Rating, 4 Votes

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I read this over and over as a kid, by ponydom on August 09, 2003

Some books just stick in your head forever, and this is one of them. The writing style is amusing and self-depricating, the adventure is just the right size, and the hardships are many. Aimed at middle schoolers, it's still fun to read as an adult.

Now that her head wasn't swinging up and down like a yo-yo and the horse's flanks no longer pumped so hard, Solveig put herself to thinking how to get back to camp. She had no idea at all where she was, but buried in the back of her head was the germ of a million-dollar idea. One of the few things she remembered from the instructions given them by camp personnel was a pithy bit of advice from old Sandoz. She had not understood it at all when she heard it, but in the last sixty seconds it had become completely clear: "When you're lost, give the horse his head and he'll always take you home." Nobody, least of all Solveig, expected one of the well-disciplined Coldbrook girls to take off on a wild ride at night on a runaway horse, but just the same it was a mercy that old Sandoz had thrown them that little gem of information.