From the first page:

“My name is Janey Oakes, and I might as well tell you straight off that I have a very serious and painful disease. I call it ‘horse fever’. It can attack when you’re young, and I understand that it can last until you’re grown-up and so busy with other things that you feel only twinges now and then. It is incurable but not fatal. The painful part grows out of not owning a horse when that is what you want more than anything else in the world.”

Even though I’m many, many years removed from being a teenager, much less a teenage girl, that first paragraph hooked me. I can almost imagine what it must have been like for a young female to get ahold of this book when it came out, especially if she had “horse fever”. I’ve suffered from that ailment periodically myself, so I can understand a little of where young Janey is coming from, and could easily relate to her story.

This is a wonderful book that involves a nice little mystery and some life lessons for young (and not so young) readers. I found it to be a really fun story, and wish I had discovered it when I was a youngster.

I just love the observant and thoughtful Janey.

“Dad says my theme song is ‘I’m not down yet!’ I suppose it’s true. There is always some way to pull up and out of almost anything, it seems to me.”

“The most important thing for anyone is to have something to fight for. Something we care about and want. I don’t mean fight for with our fists, but something to try for, struggle for. Something we can do that uses whatever we are to win the fight.”

And, there’s the love of horses:

“When I’m on a horse, everything else falls away and stops bothering me. I mean everything that worries me, all the things I can’t solve, even the thought of things I don’t want to do--everything fades into the background. I’m free-- and that is a wonderful feeling. Besides, I have with me something that is alive and that responds to me--a horse I have an affection for and who likes me.”

Well said, Janey Oakes!
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