The Horse Boy

A Father's Quest to Heal His Son
by Rupert Isaacson

I first found out about this book from Stuff As Dreams Are Made On. I've always been interested in reading about autism, and of course I love books about animals. So I was eager to pick this one up, especially after reading Wolf Totem, which is also set in Mongolia. Whereas Wolf Totem was all about the warlike side of Mongolian culture, and its interaction with wolves and other wildlife, The Horse Boy is a story of healing, about a people who embrace Buddhism and shamanism.

It began when Isaacson learned that his son Rowan was autistic. They tried many traditional therapies and diet changes; nothing seemed to help. At five years old Rowan failed to interact with other children, threw enormous temper tantrums, could barely communicate and was not toilet trained. His behavior was becoming harder and harder for his parents to manage. Then Isaacson took Rowan along to a convention of traditional healers from native tribes around the world, which he attended in capacity as a journalist. He was surprised and delighted to see Rowan's behavior improve at the convention. Later he found that Rowan, fascinated by all animals, seemed to have a special connection with a neighbor's horse- his temper tantrums dissipated and his communication improved while on horseback. He wondered if some kind of therapy involving horses and faith healing could help his son, and came up with a plan to take Rowan across Mongolia on horseback, to seek healing from their shamans.

It is an incredible journey to read about. The family traveled over vast stretches of steppes, treacherous bogs and mountain passes, pausing to visit sacred lakes, streams, and shamans along the way. The trip was fraught with difficulties, not the least that Rowan often refused to get on a horse at all, and threw screaming tantrums at transition points. And by the end of it all, although their son was still very much autistic, he had made incredible strides, including making friends with other children for the first time in his life.

It's amazing what this family went through to try and help their son. At the same time, it was often a dull read for me. There's nothing spectacular about the writing or descriptions. The story seemed to focus more on the parents' frustrations and difficulties, especially when things did not go the way they had envisioned, than on Rowan himself, or his relationship with the horses, which was what I had looked forward to reading about. It's a painfully honest story, one that still leaves me feeling skeptical: was Rowan really healed by the shaman's rituals? was he responding positively to being in nature and around animals? or were his improvements something that would have occurred anyways, whether in Outer Mongolia or at home? No one can say. While I greatly admire the family for the incredible lengths they went to (upon returning home Isaacson also established an equestrian therapy program for autistic children) the book itself was just not very engaging for me.

I borrowed this book from the public library.

Rating: 3/5                    357 pages, 2009

More opinions at:
Bermudaonion's Weblog
Age 30+ A Lifetime of Books

Wolf Totem

by Jiang Rong
translated by Howard Goldblatt

I feel a bit inadequate to say anything about this sweeping novel. Wolf Totem is a semi-autobiographical work about a Chinese student from Beijing named Chen Zhen who goes to live among the nomadic people of Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution. During his ten or so years there, he lives among the sheep and horse herders, learning about the Mongolian way of life and most of all, about the wolves. The Mongolians wage constant war against wolves because they prey on the sheep and horses, yet at the same time they revere the animals, understanding that without this key predator the mice and marmots would quickly overrun the grassland and ruin the habitat. The more Chen learns about the wolves, the more fascinated he becomes, until he moves to steal a live wolf cub from its den and raise it in captivity, in order to study it. His plan is met with outrage by the Mongolians, who feel that keeping a wolf in captivity is demeaning to the animal, as well as dangerous. As Chen struggles to keep his wolf cub alive and deal with the problems it presents, a greater threat looms. Migrating Han Chinese come into the area to establish farms on the grassland, heedless of the elders' warnings that this will be destructive to the fragile grassland environment. And one of the first things they do is start a campaign to exterminate all the wolves.

This book has a lot of political themes which I did not fully comprehend, but I gather have made it very controversial. I was more interested in the environmental issues, and fascinated by the dual relationship the Mongols had with wolves- waging fearsome bloody battles against them, learning tactics of war from their pack behavior, and honoring their dead by giving them in "sky burials" to the wolves. It was fascinating to read about the Mongolain culture, something entirely new to me, and also heartbreaking to see how incoming farmers quickly affected the landscape. The fate of the captive wolf cub was also very sad. I nearly cried at the end.

Rating: 4/5 ........ 527 pages, 2008

More opinions at:
Olduvai Reads
The Stay at Home Bookworm
Farm Lane Books Blog

The Horse Whisperer

by Nicholas Evans

Tragedy happens when Grace goes out riding early one winter morning with her best friend. Their horses slip on an icy slope and collide with a semi truck on the road below. Grace and her horse barely survive, the animal so badly injured the vet wants to put it down. But Grace's mother Annie begs him to keep it alive, fearing that her  daughter will loose her own hold on life if her beloved horse dies. The horse is so traumatized and crazed with pain that he becomes vicious and unapproachable, and seeing him in that state throws Grace into a black depression. Desperate to find healing for daughter and horse, Annie drives them across the country to Montana, where she's heard of a horse trainer that can connect to frightened and troubled horses, calming them with his understanding. So The Horse Whisperer leads them on the rocky path to healing. Made even more difficult when Annie falls in love with the horse trainer, and the daughter discovers her mother's betrayal. The ending is tragic, in a fitting kind of way. It's quite different from the movie version, which I've also seen and liked, though the book is better. Incidentally, I believe it was this book that made the term "whisperer" popular (as in dog whisperer, baby whisperer, etc).

Rating: 3/5                      404 pages, 1995

book giveaway

win a free book
This week I'm giving away a book and two bookmarks. I have a nice, hardbound copy of The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans, and two laminated bookmarks made from my scrap file, of horse pictures. (Reverse sides are plain pattern and scenery). For a chance to win this giveaway, simply leave a comment here! Make sure there is an easy way for me to contact you, in case you're the winner! (If your email isn't in a google profile or easy to find on your blog, please leave it with your comment). Open to mailing addresses in the US and Canada. Winner will be chosen next tuesday, Dec 1st.

Where You Once Belonged

by Kent Haruf

I read this one several years ago, from the library. I didn't like it quite as well as the other Haruf novels I've read. This one is also set in small farming community in Colorado. The plot builds its way backwards as a former local football hero returns after eight years' absence to his hometown, where he receives a very sour welcome. Gradually the story is pieced together to show the reader why all his neighbors hate him, portraying this young man's series of selfish, manipulative acts that not only devastated the lives of his wife and children, but nearly the entire town as well. Whereas the other two books gave me a real picture of individual characters and the closeness of small town life, this one almost felt more like a crime or mystery novel to me. The ending is really quite sudden, and unsettling. I'm still not sure if I liked it or not. The previous two I read felt like they portrayed the good, community side of small town life, and this one showed the bad underbelly. Where You Once Belonged is just the kind of story that leaves the reader (at least this one) feeling frustrated (more at the characters' shoddy actions than at the book itself).

Rating: 2/5                          176 pages, 1990

More opinions at:
Under the Dresser
Reads for Fun
Living to Read

Jack of Kinrowan

by Charles de Lint

This book was only vaguely familiar to me when I first added it to my pile at the library, but after reading a dozen pages and thumbing through more, I realized I've actually read it before. And didn't want to read it again, now. But I remember enough to tell you a little about it.

Jack of Kinrowan contains two novellas, Jack the Giant-Killer and Drink Down the Moon. These are urban fantasies, retelling Jack and the Beanstalk in a modern setting where the fae live alongside but hidden from the human world. One of the twists of de Lint's version is that a heroine takes the role of Jack- a frustrated woman named Jacqueline who discovers she has ties to the fae world and gets involved in altercations between the "good" and "bad" factions of magical beings. There's a fae princess who needs rescuing (she's been bewitched into the form of a pig!) motorcycle-riding fae thugs, and of course, giants and gnomes and other strange creatures. I liked seeing how some familiar mythology was reworked by de Lint, with his own take on things along the way- for example, when the fae were trapped between worlds by their enemies, they were stuck with swan's wings instead of arms. In the first story, Jacky and her friend Kate go on the rescue mission, that I recall pretty well. The second story didn't make much impression on me and I've forgotten most of it. It's about a fiddler who can draw on the powers of the moon, the bad fae want to steal this magic, and Jacky and her friend get called in to help. But they have a relatively minor role. All in all a fun enough read.

Rating: 3/5                    412 pages, 1990

More opinions at:
The Boston Reader
anyone else?

Dingo

by Charles de Lint

In a small quiet seaside town, Miguel meets an exotic girl- Lainey with the red-gold hair and the accompanying red-gold dog. She's from Australia, but he soon finds out that there's something more strange about her than just a foreign accent. She is a shape-shifter, a "were-dingo" on the run with her twin sister from an ancient persona who simply calls himself Dingo. He wants her life, in order to free himself from a tree he's been trapped in for centuries. Miguel must convince another boy from highschool- his enemy no less- to join with him in the quest to save the dingo girls. They travel into the dreamland and back, involving some adult figures in preparations and plans but having to face the final test alone. I liked the beginning of the book, when Miguel was puzzling out the true identity of his new girlfriend, and I liked the end, when the final meeting with Dingo turned all expectations inside out, but the middle dragged on rather dully. Again, I don't know for sure if it's just that this writer's style doesn't fully engage me, or that I've outgrown YA fiction and should leave it well alone, but although the story was interesting and the inclusion of Australian mythology new to me, my mind kept sliding away from it all. I think I'm going to put the de Lint books aside for now, and look for something else to read. They just aren't grabbing me.

Rating: 2/5 ....... 213 pages, 2008

More opinions at:
Melody's Reading Corner
Becky's Book Reviews
Rhinoa's Ramblings
Someone's Read it Already
Book Clutter

Little (Grrl) Lost

by Charles de Lint

A few days ago I decided to ignore the heaps of books lying beside my bed and visit the library. I checked out half a dozen books by Charles de Lint. The first one I picked up was Little (Grrl) Lost. It's an urban fantasy about two teenage girls, one just moved from the countryside into the city, the other running away from home. Besides the fact that the country girl is a "goody two-shoes" and the runaway a punker with a prickly attitude, there's another huge difference between them: size. Runaway-girl is only six inches tall. She's one of the "Littles"- diminuitive people who reside in the walls of houses, out of sight of their hosts. Now, I read all the books in the Littles series by John Peterson when I was a kid, and some of the Borrowers by Mary Norton too, so I liked approaching a modern take on this idea. But sadly, Little (Grrl) Lost did not keep my attention. The characters felt kind of flat, the dialogue uninteresting, and not much seemed to happen. Even when it did, I found I didn't much care. This frustrated me, because I really wanted to like the book. But after getting halfway through and realizing I was only skimming, I put it down. Maybe it's just my mood. Try some of the other reviews, listed here. They liked it better!

Abandoned ........ 271 pages, 2007

More opinions at:
Ravenous Reader
Someone's Read it Already
Words by Annie
Bookshelves of Doom
Rhinoa's Ramblings
Stuff as Dreams Are Made On
Puss Reboots

Elsewhere in the Land of Parrots

by Jim Paul

Here's a book I gave a second chance. I found it at a library sale and immediately picked it up, because I've lived in San Francisco and seen those parrots (cherry-headed conures) in the park. A novel featuring them really intrigued me. Elsewhere in the Land of Parrots is about two individuals fascinated by the parrots: a graduate student struggling to locate wild parrots in the mangrove swamps of Ecuador for research, who unwittingly gets tangled up with some illegal wildlife trafficking, and a self-isolated eccentric poet in San Francisco who doesn't like the parrot his father gave him and ends up releasing it from his apartment window. Eventually feeling guilty at letting the parrot go, he explores the city to find dozens of parrots living on Telegraph Hill, reads up about them in the public library, and finally travels to South America in search of the wild flock they must have originated from. While this book got off to a slow start with me- I was at first put off by the frequent use of the past perfect tense, and felt distanced from the characters- I liked reading the details about the city-living parrots. I knew the two people would end up together- the researcher enthralled with parrots from the beginning and frustrated in her efforts to get close to them, and the reluctant poet gradually drawn out of his isolation by a desire to know more about them. Their two stories wove together in a surprising fashion to the final meeting point. The further I read the more I was drawn into this book, until by the end I had difficulty putting it down.

Rating: 3/5                      305 pages, 2003

winner

Jenny has won the horse bookmarks. Congrats, Jenny!

The Boy of the Painted Cave

by Justin Denzel

Set in the stone age, The Boy of the Painted Cave is about a young orphan boy named Tao who was born with a club foot. His greatest desire is to become an artist, and paint in the Sacred Cave. But the tribe will never choose him for this honor because of his unknown parentage and crippled foot. Finding himself more or less an outcast, Tao starts roaming the wilds around his home and through observation discovers that some things his tribe has taught the people to fear are falsehoods. He also befriends a wild dog, a creature the tribe fears and loathes. Eventually Tao convinces a shaman to teach him the painter's skill in secret, and then tries to find a way back into his tribe; not just as an accepted member, but as one who can bring them advantages (the dog) and honor (his art). Not too in-depth (written for ages 8-12) but a well-written imaginative story that kept me curious to see what would happen next.

Rating: 3/5                     160 pages, 1988

Pigeons

The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird
by Andrew D. Blechman

A book about people who are passionate about pigeons. Love them, hate them. Breeders, sportsmen, activists, rescuers, chefs. Pigeons have a long history with man including doves that were sent from ships to find land, birds raised or hunted to be eaten in pies, and pigeons that delivered crucial messages during war. Then there are hobbyists: men who breed fancy pigeons for their colors, shapes and fantastic feathers, others involved in the dying sport of pigeon racing, or the clandestine pigeon shoots. Pushing a bit further beyond these obvious interests, the author also sought out famous people who loved pigeons (Queen Elizabeth, Mike Tyson), men whose livelihoods are built on deterring pigeons from hanging around buildings, and others who work in processing plants that sell pigeon meat to fine restaurants. Then there's the city ladies obsessed with feeding pigeons, those that furtively net pigeons to sell to the shoots, and animal-rights people who try to thwart them. Blechman finds out about them all, in the meantime sharing a wealth of pigeon lore. He claims that pigeons really don't spread disease, in spite of the mess they leave around, and that their current status as reviled "rats with wings" is relatively new; for a much longer time period pigeons have been appreciated as one of man's first domesticated animals. They can be birds of great stamina, natural athletes, and complete homebodies- racing pigeons, after all, are just speeding their way back home to their comforts and city pigeons like to hang around people because the pickings are easy. I learned a lot of interesting stuff from Pigeons, but sometimes wished it stuck a little closer to topic (more on the pigeons and less about the people) particularly the chapter about the famous boxer. It was all about how the author kept getting the runaround when trying for an interview, with a smattering of info he picked up on Tyson's pigeons. That part could have used some editing.

Rating: 3/5 ........ 239 pages, 2006

More opinions at:
Diary of a Suburban Gardener
PhiloBiblos

The Dolphin Doctor

by Sam Ridgway

Another older book I found at a library sale one time. The author of this one was a veterinarian for the Navy, and became involved in early studies of dolphin sonar and diving abilities, and training programs that used dolphins to assist scientists at sea (retrieving objects, delivering messages between divers, etc). The Dolphin Doctor is mostly about one particular dolphin named Tuffy, but also about the extent of dolphin work in the sixties and seventies, when the field was very new. Not much was known about dolphins; much of the work Ridgway did was just as much to learn about their physiology as it was to keep them in good health. He was the first vet to come up with a way to safely anesthetize a dolphin. It was really interesting to read about his work with the dolphins- and to see Tuffy's transformation. He was a wild-caught dolphin, at first truculent, resistant and fought off any human contact. Won over by patience on the part of biology assistant Debbie (and many fish), Tuffy became cooperative and proved to be intelligent and highly trainable. Remarkably, he was even trained to work at sea- swimming freely, following the boat, diving to great depths for tests. Eventually Debbie had to leave for graduate school, and when she came back to visit after three months their reunion was very touching. Dolphins are really incredible animals, and when this book was written scientists were just beginning to learn more about their abilities. It's a bit awkward in the beginning- jumping from one time period to another, and including a section about Ridgway's youth on a farm that felt a bit out of place- but overall an interesting book.

Rating: 3/5                      159 pages, 1987

blog award

I have hedged and hesitated over acknowledging this award received from Sherrie at A View of My Life, simply because it's getting hard for me to choose blogs to pass awards on to. I like them all so much! Maybe someday I'll just put all the blogs from my Google reader into random.org and award whoever comes up (just kidding)! Well, here's the rules for this award:

•Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.

•Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.

•Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to This Post, which explains The Award.

•Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we'll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!

•Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.

and here's some blogs I want to give it to:

A Work in Progress
The Book Tiger
Across the Page
Musings of a Bookish Kitty

go check them out!

Red Fox

by Charles G.D. Roberts

Reading Red Fox was nostalgic for me. I can't remember where I first picked this book up, at my elementary school library or the Burien public branch. I do know I must have read it half a dozen times when I was young. It's out of print now, but I was happy to find a copy via Book Mooch and read it one more time.

The book tells the lifestory of a fox in the Canadian woods. It is based on observations of wild foxes, many true-life incidents all complied into one adventurous story. The hero of Red Fox is the largest of his litter, stronger, braver and smarter than the rest. He learns survival lessons and hunting skills from his mother, also from his siblings' blunders and his own mistakes. He must outwit his prey, deal with changing weather conditions and confront or avoid other predators- mink, lynx, eagles, bears, rival foxes. By the time he is an adult he knows how to outwit dogs and farmers, but then a young boy who has been quietly watching him helps trap the fox and tries to tame him. That failing, he sells the fox, thinking the animal will be taken to a zoo. But Red Fox is let loose on the grounds of a foxhunting club, where he must use all his wits against the hounds if he wants to gain his freedom again. The story ends a little abruptly, but otherwise I enjoyed it. Some passages jumped out from my memory, others I had entirely forgotten and that made reading it anew a discovery all over again. The pen-and-ink illustrations by John Schoenherr are quite nice.

Rating: 3/5 ........ 187 pages, 1972

Next Panda, Please!

Further Adventures of a Wildlife Vet
by David Taylor

I was so glad to enjoy a David Taylor book again, after my last disappointment. This one describes Taylor's work with animals at Belle Vue Zoo in Manchester, as well as his travels abroad to treat sick falcons in Saudi Arabia and the first panda to live in a zoo in Madrid (the panda's story is a continual thread throughout the book). Among his animal patients are an armadillo who was kicked down a street by teenagers, a dolphin that needs a limb amputated, a deer with a dislocated eye, some killer whales with frostbite, cheetahs which have mysteriously been drugged, and young giraffes suffering from stress, on account of being included in a filmmaking project. This chapter delighted me the most, as here I "met" people known to me from other books. A few years ago I read two books on giraffes, one Raising Daisy Rothschild by Betty Leslie-Melville. Taylor knew Leslie-Melville, and went to Kenya to visit the ranch when they were making a film about how she had raised an orphan giraffe. The funniest chapter (although not its ending) was about a traveling circus where a chimpanzee took revenge on a parrot that constantly taunted him by sitting and crapping on his head while screaming dirty words at the crowd. The saddest chapter was reading about how the Belle Vue Zoo finally closed, and the difficulties finding places for all the animals to go. And of course, like always in Next Panda, Please! I was completely engaged with Taylor's easy writing style and learning the interesting facts about animals. Did you know, for example, that one of the very few animals to suffer from leprosy alongside humans are armadillos? Lucky for us (but unhappily for the armadillos) this means they were used in research on treatments for leprosy.

Rating: 4/5 ........ 196 pages, 1982

The Three-Legged Stallion

and Other Tales from a Doctor's Notebook
by Siegfried Kra, M.D.

I read this book for the Random Reading Challenge. It was #14 on my list. The first story almost dampened my interest for the rest- but I continued reading and the puzzle of each little tale was intriguing enough to get me through the book. It's a collection of "medical mysteries"- people suffering from various unusual conditions and illnesses, and how the doctor finally figured out what it was. Most of them had good outcomes, for a few the solution came too late, or there was no known cure. Among the stories are a ladies' man who looses his potency, a man who is constantly blue in the face, a dentist who is slowly going crazy and a man being poisoned by the wine from his own vineyard. But interspersed are a few different kind of stories- the longest being one of the author's own childhood illness, a continuous fever of unknown cause- and a sad little chapter about time he spent as a medical student in a tuberculosis sanatorium in the early 50's, where he fell in love with one of the patients. There's also one about a trip he took on a night train to Paris, where a poor, Italian family (due to a language barrier) misconstrued his attempts to help their ill, elderly father as an attack on his life! In style it's kind of like an Oliver Sacks book, but not nearly as well-written, more casual in a light storytelling vein. I read through it pretty quickly.

Rating: 2/5                         213 pages, 1989

bookmarks giveaway

Win two free horse bookmarks!
Two bookmarks up for grabs this week; a pair of horses. Laminated, with a short ribbon tassel. I didn't show the back this time because it's pretty plain, blue color on the one, golden brown on the other with a dancing horse at one end. If you'd like to win these horsey bookmarks, just leave a comment here before tuesday 11/17 . Name will be drawn at random. Open worldwide.

(click image for larger view)

Hillbilly Gothic

A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood
by Adrienne Martini

New moms are supposed to be all smiles and delight over their tiny little bundles of joy, right? So what happens when they're not? In this heartachingly wry memoir, Martini takes us through her experience with postpartum depression. She knew going into motherhood that her family history was peppered with women who habitually "went mad" after giving birth, not to mention those who suffered from depression or bi-polar disorder, and a number of relatives who were suicidal. These things went unspoken in her family, but they began to make more sense to her when soon after the arrival of her first baby she felt her emotions sliding out of control, into an abyss of tears and helplessness. Insomnia, difficulties breastfeeding, frustrations at the baby's demands, at her own inability to live up to her concept of the ideal mom. When her infant was barely a month old, she finally admitted herself to a psychiatric ward and sought help. Martini takes the reader along as she plumbs the depths of her emotions and patches her life back together: what triggered her depression? can she recognize it if it happens again? can she face the birth of a second child? She also talks a lot about place, about living as the descendant of Appalachian mountaineers, but I didn't really get a sense of the "hillbilly" aspect of it. Most of all, I was intrigued by her discussion on the stigma of mental illness; even though we now know that mental health problems are caused by genetics and chemical imbalance - not weakness of character or sin- it is still a difficult and sometimes shameful thing to admit. At one point in the memoir, Martini mentions how she picked and chose which friends she would tell the truth of her condition to; at another point she's recently moved into a new neighborhood and introduces herself with this information, choosing which people to befriend by their reaction to it. More than anything, Hillbilly Gothic feels so painfully honest. Here's a normal, perfectly nice woman who just couldn't hold it together when the new baby came. I am sure there are hundreds of others like her with stories untold. People don't like to think about moms who fail to go ga-ga over little babies, but they exist, and they're not horrible people, and perhaps this book will help them be more understood.

Rating: 3/5 ........ 221 pages, 2006

More opinions at:
Rebecca Unpublished
Library Goddesses

Nov reviews- DogEar Challenge

Here's the place to put review links this month, for books read for the DogEar Reading Challenge. Only one month left!

I know two readers have finished already, but I'm still searching for my last book to read, an adult fantasy. I tried all the ones left on my shelf, and for one reason or another none of them worked for me- Moon Called got boring, Tolkien's Silmarillion and Book of Lost Tales had such an archaic, dry writing style I could not understand it, much less enjoy- and The Summer Country was just bleh. I didn't even make it through the first chapter of that. The rest of the unread fantasy books in my house are YA, so I started going through my TBR list, but dismayed to find most aren't even in my public library system, and the few that are, reside in other branches. So I'm going to have to request them and wait a bit...

Anyhow, if you're reading along for my little challenge, leave your links here for the month of Nov!