Eighth-grader Scoop lives with her aunt and grandfather on a horse farm they can barely maintain, but by trusting God and befriending a mysterious and wealthy new neighbor, Scoop finds a way to keep both the farm and her beloved horse Orphan.
Louise Erdrich meets Karen Russell in this deliciously strange and daringly original novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Margaret Verble: An eclectic cast of characters--both real and ghostly--converge at an amusement park in Nashville, 1926.
Stevie Lake’s a mom–to eight fuzzy goslings! Stevie Lake entered a contest to win a down comforter. Instead she got a new “family”–a nestful of goose eggs. But when the eggs hatch, it’s love at first sight for Stevie and the goslings. Now Stevie’s learning that being a mom is hard work: the goslings want to go everywhere Stevie goes, even to Pine Hollow. Stevie has to keep her “kids” safe while trying to learn a new skill–vaulting. The Saddle Club is determined to master vaulting and show Veronica diAngelo that success takes more than fancy coaches. Can they pull this off? Or is The Saddle Club plus eight goslings and one vaulting horse a recipe for disaster?
Horse owners are subjected to an endless stream of information and unless it is correct, problems can result. Dr. Ramey sets the record straight on such topics as vaccinations, exercise, lameness, pregnancy, stress and behavior. The author is practiced in surgery as well as preventive medicine.
When Scoop meets the beautiful and glamorous Twila Twopennies and is invited to help out at her lavish stables, Scoop imagines that Twila is the mother who gave her up for adoption fifteen years earlier.
The author invites readers to spend time in the pleasure of Harpo's cinematic company while comparing him to tricksters from folklore, myth and legend. The book demonstrates how Harpo, the sweetest, wildest, most magical Marx brother, accomplishes the archetypal trickster's work. Thirteen chapters examine Harpo's trickster persona closely in each of the Marx Brothers' films: The Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, Room Service, At the Circus, Go West, The Big Store, A Night in Casablanca and Love Happy. Harpo as trickster embodies luck, foolishness, cleverness, mania, hunger, lust, stealing, shape-shifting, gender-bending, alliance with underdogs, attacks on the powerful, musicality, sympathy for animals, magic and mischief. His trickster behaviors in all the films are woven into a composite impression that "with a little luck, will resonate beyond the covers of this book and leak out into the world, making it a more just, flexible, resilient, amusing and magical place."