12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Shouldn't Be Dismissed as Merely Another "Horse Book.", October 5, 2009
This review is from: Wild Girl (Hardcover)
Twelve-year-old Lidie has spent the past several years imagining what life in America would be like. Her father and older brother, Rafael, have lived in America ever since her mother died when Lidie was seven. Although they left for New York after the incident, Lidie stayed behind in Brazil with her aunt and uncle, waiting for her father to send for her.
Now it's time for Lidie herself to head to America, and she has mixed feelings. She will miss the bright colors and bold tastes of life on her uncle's farm and in her aunt's kitchen. She will miss the challenges of school. Most of all, she will miss her favorite horse, Cavalo, whom she loves to ride like the wind.
Meanwhile, as Lidie is making the long journey from Brazil to New York, so is another girl --- this one a filly from South Carolina. She is mistrustful of most humans, is terrified of cats, and longs more than anything to return to her mother. But there are other plans for her as she too leaves her home and heads north to New York.
When Lidie arrives at her father's house, she is rather nervous. But her anxiety soon gives way to disappointment when she realizes that her father and brother think that she's still seven years old! They want to buy her snow boots with bunnies on them, and they've decorated her room with Disney characters. Worst of all, they don't even know that she is an excellent horse rider, possibly even better than her brother, who's training to be a jockey. They don't seem to know her at all. School is also a challenge --- the subjects are easy, but the English words she has studied don't help when she has an emergency, like really needing to use the bathroom.
However, when the filly named "Wild Girl" arrives for Lidie's horse trainer father, things start to turn around in Lidie's life as she begins to develop a connection with the horse. But will this newfound friendship be enough to help the skittish filly feel at ease in her new home? And can Wild Girl help Lidie show her father and brother who she really is?
WILD GIRL smoothly alternates between chapters told from Lidie's point of view and those that reveal, in impressionistic prose, the experiences of the horse. Readers will be quick to pick up on the parallels between the two stories and surprised to see how well they fit together.
Of course, Patricia Reilly Giff's novel will have great appeal to horse-mad readers, girls like Lidie who have photos and drawings of horses tacked up on their bedroom walls. But WILD GIRL shouldn't be dismissed as merely another "horse book." It also provides an insightful glimpse into the immigrant experience, particularly for the large number of immigrants who come to America after immediate family already has been established here. The difficulties of finding your place within a family that seems alien, of deciphering new norms at school, of holding on to the things that make you special --- these topics greatly enrich WILD GIRL and will speak to anyone who has ever felt a desire to belong.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent story for kids, January 1, 2010
This review is from: Wild Girl (Hardcover)
My 9 year old son and I read this book together. He couldn't put it down and didn't want it to end. I struggle to get him to read with me, especially chapter books, but this one was perfect for him. It was a simple story line with some new words for him. "If your child loves horses they would love this," my son says. Great!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wild Girl, May 29, 2010
This review is from: Wild Girl (Hardcover)
Wild Girl should be on the reading lists of every aspiring or established author of horsey fiction.
It's not that it's amazing. It's just a good story, centered on a likable girl with realistic problems that have nothing to do with a horse of her own plot. The horse in question is not the second coming of every wonder horse in fiction. She's just a young filly that doesn't quite know what's expected of her, and is as equally scared as she is curious. Like most horses in the world.
Lidie arrives in New York knowing little English, and hardly knowing the father and brother that arrive to meet her. There is enough understandable awkwardness to go around, and Lidie is left feeling about as cold as the New York winter she's suddenly walked into from her Brazilian sunshine. It doesn't help matters that her family remembers her as a seven-year-old girl, obsessed with Disney and the color pink. Lidie's done some growing up, and these things were cast aside years ago, but she hasn't grown up enough to come out and easily tell her father and brother who she is, what she likes, and what she's capable of.
To make matters worse, nothing is exactly easy for Lidie on her first day of school. Language barriers create some horrifying memories, and she bolts, convinced that she's never going to fit in. Poor Lidie's got a lot on her plate, so when they drive out to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to pick up a couple of horses, she finds a bit of a kindred spirit in Wild Girl, a filly that's been on a similar journey.
In the end, filly and girl are both missing something. They eventually find what they're looking for. It's a sweet book, with none of the usual grating horse story components you'll usually find.
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