Magic Hoofbeats

Magic Hoofbeats is a collection of folktales focused specifically on horse tales. Sherman is very clear that she hasn't even included any tales in which the horses are actually transformed people but only those in which the horse is a horse all the way through. The selection covers only North

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America, Europe, and Asia, but several cultures within each of these continents are included. An opening two-page spread introduces each story with a full-page illustration of the horse breed selected and a one-page cultural note on the place horses held in the cultures selected. The language of the stories is more literary than oral-friendly, but most of the stories could be adapted for oral telling fairly easily. The tales themselves are illustrated with both spot art and larger illustrations in acrylic. These illustrations highlight major plot points and are done in a folk art style with little perspective. The entire presentation is lovely and will appeal to older grade school and junior high horse lovers. One of the few flaws is that while there is a list of sources at the back of the book, there is no explanation for how Sherman adapted each story from the several sources listed for each tale; however an unexplicated list of sources is certainly better than no sources at all.

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