Adrian Simcox does not have a horse

by Marcy Campbell

Other authorsCorinna Luyken (Illustrator.)
Hardcover, 2017

Status

Checked out
Due 2024-04-20

Publication

New York, NY : Dial Books for Young Readers, [2017]

Description

"Adrian Simcox brags about owning a horse, and Chloe just knows he's making stuff up...until she learns an important lesson in empathy"--

User reviews

LibraryThing member darianskie
Just because Adrain Simcox doesn't have a real horse, doesn't mean he doesn't have an imagination.
LibraryThing member AbigailAdams26
A young girl learns the value of kindness in this immensely moving picture-book, starting out with a concern for the facts, but ending up with an appreciation for the truth. Convinced that her classmate, the eponymous Adrian Simcox, could not possibly have a horse - after all, he lived in a small
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house in the middle of town, and came from such poor circumstances that he always had holes in his shoes - Chloe insisted to anyone who would listen that the horse Adrian was always describing was fictitious. Then one evening her mother led her and her pet pooch Chompers on a walk past the Simcox house, and Chloe, through playing with Adrian, and considering his feelings, came to see things from a different perspective. She came to understand that Adrian Simcox had just about the best imagination of any kid in our whole school..."

Like Jacqueline Woodson's excellent Each Kindness, another of my rare five-star picture-books, Adrian Simcox Does NOT Have a Horse is a powerful exploration of childhood social dynamics, and the importance of showing kindness to others. It drives home the all-important idea that sometimes (many times!) it is more important to be kind than to be right. This is a lesson many adults could benefit from as well! More subtly, it contrasts the ideas of factuality and truth. Factually, it's pretty clear that Adrian Simcox doesn't have a horse. But truthfully? Such is the power of his imagination, such is the strength and comfort it gives him, that perhaps he does have a horse, after a fashion. How lovely that, in a roundabout way, that horse brought him a real friend, in the form of his erstwhile taunter, Chloe. Just like Marcy Campbell's narrative, Corinna Luyken's artwork here, done in ink, colored pencil and watercolor, is absolutely beautiful, expressively capturing both Chloe and Adrian's emotional states.

It's astonishing to think that this is Campbell's debut, and only Luyken's second (her first being her own The Book of Mistakes). Well done to both - I will await their next projects eagerly! As for this one, I highly recommend it, to anyone looking for children's stories about the imagination, and about the importance of empathy.
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Language

ISBN

0735230374 / 9780735230378

Barcode

185

Lexile

L
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