Patricia Leitch (1933–2015)

Horse from the Black Loch is a page-turning adventure, with a wonderful Scottish setting. It's a book to delight any young aficionado of pony stories, folktales, and magic. But the portrayal of the Horse is too ambiguous and even contradictory to sit well with someone who reads it for the first time as an adult. Its origin and nature are never explained. Sometimes it seems clearly supernatural (apparently immortal, for one thing) and yet when the villains capture it and lock it in the shed show more it seems as helpless as any mortal horse. I closed the book with a feeling of bewilderment rather than satisfaction, but a pony-loving little girl who dreams of being special to a magical horse might find this a favourite book. show less

*spoiler warning*

Well, I had a lot of small quibbles with this novel as I was reading it, but overall I really enjoyed it.

In the beginning it seemed like yet another "city girl who knows nothing about horses wants to get her own horse" book. She can't ride very well, and yet she rides a flighty hunter and ends up in lots of trouble. She doesn't seem to know much about horses or ponies, how to choose the right one, what to look for, etc, and for awhile it's cringe-worthy.

My opinion started show more to change when Sandy met Tarka and knew right away that she had to buy her, had to save the sick neglected pony even though this was far from her "dream pony". The drama with Tarka getting so sick was a bit cliched, it seems like almost every "first horse"-type book has that.

Some of the things that happened in the book... Maybe because it was written so long ago? Maybe things were just all-around safer back then, I really don't know. But I was very surprised at Sandy's instructor taking them riding in a storm, especially with shy-happy ponies. And amazed that Sandy, an 11 year old kid, was allowed to ride her pony 20 miles through a busy city she had never even been to. That seems almost neglectful on the parent's part. And then Karen and Sandy stopped in the middle of nowhere in a strange place to help a strange old man who said he was hurt. Nowadays that would be red-flag for "get out of there now".

Many things in this book simply go too fast. I know it's supposed to be a short children's book, but so many things that could have been really interesting drama (the hurt man, the struggle riding the ponies across the busy street, even the fox-hunting) were over in a page or two and didn't seem to add much to the story because they were over so quickly.

However! Overall it was a fairly good read, I liked the writing and the different (old-type) language, and I may even read it again someday. show less

*spoilers!*

This book is just outright depressing. The entire freakin' book. Starts out with Jinny's family moving because her dad can't stand to be a probation officer anymore, and talks about all the people he wasn't able to help/save. Then the poor abused horse at the circus that causes Jinny to lunge at the ringmaster to stop him from beating her... And Jinny has to leave and know that the poor horse will forever be scared and abused.

Then when the unthinkable happens and the abused horse show more is bought by the farmer at the new house... Oh, wait, nope, still depressing. Halfway through the book Jinny still has barely even touched the wild scared horse that she names Shantih. The book details the difficult school, the cruel teacher, Jinny being so disheartened about having to ride a "trek horse" to school instead of her "dream Arab". Jinny goes running, riding, chasing, nearly every day, trying to catch Shantih... Which is about the stupidest thing to do when the horse is terrified of people. She even corners the poor thing in a paddock just because she wants to get close to "her" horse; That horse isn't hers by any means, Shantih is completely wild and has been taught to fear humans. Jinny probably only made things worse by always cornering her and running at her.

And then the winter comes, with lots of snow, and Shantih is still so scared of humans that she won't come down off the mountains/moors to get shelter and food. She damn near dies in the snow, *Jinny* nearly dies trying to save her...

And then suddenly they are best buds. Shantih nearly dies, and when she's finally nursed back to health she seems to have forgotten all about the humans that made her life hell, and she lets Jinny hug her and ride her with no problem. ..... Whaaaaaat? How does that make any sense at all? Even if the horse finally realized that Jinny was trying to help her, there wouldn't be such a huge change so fast.
I know that the second book in this series deals with Shanith's wildness and how hard it is to ride her, so I'm very confused why this book would end with them being so close and her being so trusting.

I will not be keeping this book. What a disappointment. show less