Hey everybody,
Horn Book has come out with the first review of Are You a Horse! I think it sounds pretty good! So long!
Roy is one confused cowpoke. His friends give him a saddle for his birthday, but he doesn’t know what it is. “Luckily, it came with instructions: 1. Find a horse 2. Enjoy the ride.” Except Roy doesn’t know what a horse is, either. Thus begins Roy’s cheery absurdist trek through the desert, trying to fulfill instruction number one by interviewing likely candidates à la P. D. Eastman’s Are You My Mother?. Engaging cartoon illustrations, rendered in a toasty warm palette, show that Roy looks the part of a born-and-bred buckaroo, with his ten-gallon hat, boots, and Texas-themed belt buckle. But his comic level of ignorance shines bright as the Western sun when he approaches his first interview subject, a rusty red wagon. “‘Are you a horse?’ he asked. ‘Nope, I’m an old wagon,’ said the wagon. ‘A horse is a living thing.’” A talking cactus, snake, crab, chameleon, and others all give him clues until he finally finds his steed and moves on to instruction number two in a hilarious closing scene that proves Roy’s equestrian education still has a ways to go.
