A Horse Named Scruffy

This story is for all those young girls and boys who have always wanted to own a horse and have a passion for these amazing animals. A young girl's experience of loss and grief at an early age left an emptiness. This was filled with the love of horses and dreams of being a champion. Her pathway to fulfilling her dreams came from an unlikely source. Little did she know that this horse would take her down a pathway to fulfill every dream throughout her life. Their lives together would take unknown turns, but the one constant was they always had faith and love in each other. They were more than a young girl with a horse--they were family and best friends all rolled into one. They weaved their lives together through the years. There were times of great success and happiness, getting to make new friends, but more unbearable loss. A life in the country living on a farm was not her original plan in life, but it turned out to be better than she could ever imagine. This was a life of hard work to get to where you want to go. They had a lifelong bond and love that would last a lifetime through happiness and sadness.

"Deserves a spot on the shelf next to the most beloved children's classics—yes, even The Secret Garden." —Shelf Awareness, Starred Review Described as "reminiscent of the Chronicles of Narnia" in a starred review, The Secret Horses of Briar Hill shows readers everywhere that there is color in our world—they just need to know where to look. There are winged horses that live in the mirrors of Briar Hill hospital—the mirrors that reflect the elegant rooms once home to a princess, now filled with sick children. Only Emmaline can see the creatures. It is her secret. One morning, Emmaline climbs over the wall of the hospital’s abandoned gardens and discovers something incredible: a white horse with a broken wing has left the mirror-world and entered her own. The horse, named Foxfire, is hiding from a dark and sinister force—a Black Horse who hunts by colorless moonlight. If Emmaline is to keep him from finding her new friend, she must surround Foxfire with treasures of brilliant shades. But where can Emmaline find color in a world of gray? A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2016 "Endearing characters, metaphors for life and death, and a slow revelation of the horrors of war give this slim novel a surprising amount of heft."—Booklist, Starred Review "In clear, gripping, flawless prose . . . this exquisite, beautifully illustrated middle-grade novel explodes with raw anguish, magic and hope, and readers will clutch it to their chests and not want to let go."—Shelf Awareness, Starred Review "Reminiscent of the Chronicles of Narnia, Elizabeth Goudge, or a child's version of Life of Pi. . . . Readers will love this to pieces." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review "Magical, terrifying, and full of heart. Open these pages, and ride true."—Newbery Honor-winning author Kathi Appelt "A remarkable book. Astonishing!"—Michael Morpurgo, author of War Horse

From the National Book Award winner comes the moving novel of Sweet William, an old thoroughbred horse, who recounts the trials and tribulations of his life. Sweet William shares the glory of his days as a race horse--and as a broken-down mount transformed by the kindness of a strange old man.

"When troubled twenty-one-year-old Seamus Blake meets the enigmatic Jimmy (just arrived in San Francisco by bicycle from his hometown in Buffalo, New York), he feels his life may finally be taking off. But the ensuing romance proves short-lived as Jimmy dies of an AIDS-related illness. The grieving Seamus is obliged to keep a promise: "Take me back the way I came," Jimmy had asked. And so Seamus sets out by bicycle on a picaresque journey with the ashes, hoping to bring them back to Buffalo. He meets truck drivers, waitresses, Native Americans, college kids, farmers, ranchers, and Marines--each one giving him a new perspective on his own life and on Jimmy's death. When he falls in man whose mother has also recently died, Seamus's grief and his story become universal and redemptive. Award-winning novelist Trebor Healey depicts San Francisco in the 1980s and '90s in poetic prose that is both ribald and poignant, and a crossing into the American West that is dreamy, mythic, mystifying."--Publisher's description.

Travel with Muffin the kitten and Scruffy the puppy to a magical realm and meet fabulous creatures of legend and fantasy. Answers, plus notes on each of the mythic characters.

A rogue. An outlaw. An unlikely hero. Viking is the sole offspring of a savage and vicious mare. The colt is the pride of the stable until his dam kills a groom in her stall. Viking is a painful reminder of the tragedy, and so he is sold off. The black colt has a coarse face and a mean curl to his nostrils, but he is beautifully proportioned with magnificent gaits. With his teeth and thick weapon of a tail, Viking brutalizes everyone who handles him and humiliates the best trainers in the world until Anne O'Neil tries him. The first time she rides him, she declares she will not buy him if he was the last apple in the barrel. The second time, she rides him as if he is as sensitive as one of her Thoroughbreds, and she is amazed by the results. Kindness and sugar turn out to be the keys to Viking's heart. Viking and Anne become rising stars until a cruel and brutal trainer seeks to crush his spirit. A Horse Named Viking follows the life journey of an incredible, unforgettable horse.

Fourteen-year-old John Barron is asked, like his father and grandfather before him, to spend the summer taking care of their sheep in the haymeadow. Six thousand sheep. John will be alone, except for two horses, four dogs, and all those sheep. John doesn't feel up to the task, but he hopes that if he can accomplish it, he will finally please his father. But John finds that the adage "things just to sheep" is true when the river floods, coyotes attack, and one dog's feet get cut. Through it all he must rely on his own resourcefulness, ingenuity, and talents to survive this summer in the haymeadow.

Thunder and Fury: Whitson's Raiders spans the early life of Jesse Whitson on through the Civil War, a South Carolinian who felt reluctant to fight for Southern independence. When Southerners turned to seceding and forming the Confederate States of America, he tried to reason with people so they’d relent. He did not want to see the nation divided, and yet a meeting with a prominent figure of the time inspired him to come to terms with an inner struggle for leading a partisan command.

The origin story of how Scruffy met Helean.