Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Wallas Memoir/ true life novel 7/8th/High School
Scribner, 2009 270 pp., $26 ISBN978-1-4165-8628-9
Captivating and disarming, this is the imagined story of the author’s grandmother, Lily Casey Smith. Full of the sense of its time and the grit and determination of its remarkable, memorable character, this novel swallows the reader whole. Born in a dug out and breaking horses at the age of five, Lily possesses fierce passion. At fifteen she rides five hundred miles alone on her pony, Patches, to become a schoolteacher in a small frontier town. Many adventures ensue including a failed marriage to a “crumb bum”. She goes with next husband, Big Jim, to run a ranch and raise her children. She is passionate about cars and planes. Girls will be drawn by her determination and ability to overcome obstacles while still maintaining her dignity if not her temper. This would be an interesting book to have students read before writing their own imagined true-life story about a relative.
