Windy Hill Stables and Fighter in the Woods

Patterson, Kaitlyn Sage. Presley and the Impossible Dream (Windy Hill Stables #1)

February 4, 2025 by Feiwel & Friends

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Presley Elder has always wanted to ride horses, and has read every nonfiction horse book she can get her hands on. Her mother has acquiesced to having many other animals since Presley's stepdad, Dr. Sharaf is a vet, but is too terrified of horses to let Presley ride them. When Presley gets the opportunity to go to the Windy Hill Stables in Virginia to help her stepdad and Dr. Peters evaluate a horse that one of the riders wants to buy, she's thrilled. She's also surprised to find that it is Harper and her sister Marnie whose family is looking to buy an Andalusian named Isolde. She always thought that Harper was a snooty, rich girl like her best friend Amy, but Harper is very involved in all pursuits equine and has read all the fictional horse titles. The two are both surprised, but quickly bond over their shared love. The owner of the stables, Traci, has recently had a very bad accident, and has her broken arm in a sling, which has lead to the stables being a bit unkempt. Presley sees this as an opportunity, and after getting permission from her mother as well as Harper's two mothers, arranges to go to the stables to watch Harper's lessons. She proposes to Traci that she help clean up as a way to help pay for lessons. Traci calls Presley's mom, who relents, but also lets Presley know why she is so afraid; her best friend broke her neck falling from a horse when she was seventeen, but wouldn't have wanted a girl who was so passionate about horses to be denied a chance to ride. Presley learns a lot about taking care of horses; it's one thing to read about it, and quite another to clean up horse manure. When she finally gets a chance to have a lesson, she does all the necessary work to get to know the horse, Rigo. When she takes her lesson, however, someone claps, which freaks Rigo, and Presley is thrown. She's okay, but she and her mother are both shaken. It turns out that Amy was the one who clapped, and she is dealt with severely. Presley knows she needs to get back on the horse, even though she is nervous, and that she always needs to be aware of her situation because accidents can always happen. Even her mother is okay, and Presley is excited about her new friendship with Harper as well as her ability to actually ride a horse. 

Strengths: Presley's experience with horses is probably very much like my students; they read about horses and fall in love with them before they even see many in person! It was so interesting to see Presley put together her book knowledge with want she sees in person. There are plenty of details that my readers will love; the real challenges of cleaning equipment and mucking out stalls, but also the thrill of sitting on a horse. There's a little bit of requisite drama with Amy, but it was good to see that Harper and Presley got along without fighting. There are some details that would not have made it into horse books "from the last century" (like Bryant's 1988 Saddle Club series or Betancourt's 1994 Pony Pals); Presley has box braids, and Traci lets her know that she might need different helmets to safely accommodate her different hairstyles. I try to buy a new horse book or two every year to keep up with the steady but not overwhelming number of readers I have, and this will be one that will go nicely with Hicks' Ride On, Farley's Phantom Stallion, and Burkhardt's Saddle Hill Academy. 
Weaknesses: This focuses on English style riding, and the one super avid reader I have right now is desperate for more Western style riding books! 
What I really think: I'm curious to see the next book in the series. Will it, like Hapka's Ponies of Chincoteague, focus on a different character for each book? No information is available at this time, but this is available in hardcover from Follett's Titlewave. 

Greene, Joshua M. Fighter in the Woods: The True Story of a Jewish Girl who Joined the Partisans in World War II

February 4, 2025 by Scholastic Focus

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

In 1943, Celia Cimmer is working with the Resistance to the Nazis in Poland, blowing up a munitions depot. What brought her to this desperate position? In this fictionalized account based on a video interview recorded by Celia Kossow in 1980, we see how Celia's school in Druya was bombed by the Nazis in 1941, and the teenager had to flee in her nightgown. Hoping for help, she went to a friend's house, but the friend told her to go away because she was Jewish. Her home town of Szarkowszcyzna was forty miles away, and she was fortunate the a truck driver picked her up and helped her get back. There, she found that Nazis had turned her town into a ghetto, and her entire family was living in a storage shed. The Nazis had taken everything, and forced the citizens to work for them. The whole family had to get jobs, and Celia applied to be a waitress in the Nazi headquarters. Unfortunately, the commandant had a grievance against her family, and informed her that she would be his "girlfriend" and live with him or be killed. When she replied that she would not, she was tortured and eventually shot at. The bullet missed her, but caused lifelong hearing damage. She managed to get home, where her mother, Liba, cared for her. She eventually had to go back to work, but when she heard that the ghetto was to be liquidated, she and her family ran. Their town was destroyed, and the group that they were with was caught and walked to another town Glubok. Her father was killed, so her mother tells her to run away. Luckily, a Christian boy, Piotr, helps her to escape and hides her at his family's farm. Sometimes, she would have to stay in a dark hole in the cellar for days. Liba and Celia's sister, Slava, also escape, but are caught. Liba dies, and Salva is injured and thrown into a pit for the dead. She escapes, and manages to crawl to Piotr's house. The sisters are taken to the Resistance, for which their brothers Herske and Zahman are working, and are eventually trained with weapons and horses. Unlike many Holocaust tales, there is a satisfying conclusion, as we see how Celia's life unfolds after she marries and emigrates to the US. There is also an excellent note about how the experiences of Jewish people during the Holocaust should be remembered but not glamorized. 

Strengths: The author's notes about how he adapted Celia's interview into a book were very interesting, and I especially appreciated that he talked about how he tried to verify information so that Holocaust deniers wouldn't have any ammunition for saying this was fake. In today's world, that attention to detail is refreshing. The inclusion of pictures of Celia and of groups of Resistance members and other period photographs will help make this seem more real to young readers, for whom World War II is becoming very far removed. While there are atrocities portrayed, they are all done with a good balance of truth and delicacy; 6th graders might not understand fully what being a commandant's "girlfriend" would entail, but older readers will. It was good to see that at least four of the siblings survived, and their post war experience was very similar to that of friends of mine who emigrated from Silesia. 
Weaknesses: I was hoping for more involvement with horses, based on the cover, since Hopkinson's World War II Close Up: They Saved the Stallions was fresh in my mind. 
What I really think: This author's My Survival: A Girl on Schindler's List (with Rena Finder), Signs of Survival: A Memoir of the Holocaust (with Renee Hartman), and The Girl Who Fought Back: Vladka Meed and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising are all riveting, fast paced accounts that don't cover up the atrocities of war, but give a first hand perspective on what it was like to survive such trauma. They are a greater choice for refreshing Holocaust titles, which can become very worn through years of use.