Dora at Follyfoot by Monica Dickens

Dora at Follyfoot by Monica Dickens
Buy Dora at Follyfoot by Monica Dickens at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Confident Readers
Reviewer: Sue Magee
Summary: Another gem from the 'Follyfoot' series of books. They're well written with good plots and will delight any horse lover.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 192	Date: June 2011
Publisher: Andersen Press
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-1849393263
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Follyfoot Home of Rest for Horses is owned by the Colonel, but he's been very ill in hospital and now he has to go away to a warm climate to recuperate. It's not quite certain who is in charge of the farm in his absence. It might be Dora or it might be Steve – but there's one thing that is quite clear: they're both under strict instructions not to buy any horses. What's Dora to do though, when she realises that unless she buys the cream-coloured, lame horse, Amigo, it will end its days pulling a log cart? Well, obviously she has to buy the horse with money she borrows from the shady Ron Stryker. How's she to pay it back though?

I remember the Follyfoot books from when my daughter was a child. They were good then and they are equally good now. The value of money might have changed and modern young people wouldn't move without their mobile phones, but the story is so good that even as an adult I couldn't but keep turning the pages. The main reason for this is that the plot is strong and once you get past the idea of teenagers being left in charge of a rest home for horses and looking after a 12-year-old child, it's very believable. Dora's love of horses comes over strongly and you feel with her that the cream coloured horse cannot be left to pull the log cart. I defy anyone to say that they would have done differently!

The story might be aimed at the tween age group but it's never patronising and Monica Dickens doesn't make concessions to her readers. You will have to work out for yourself why Slugger put the Colonel's old pipe on the fire despite the fact that the Colonel had assured him that it had been nothing to do with his illness. You'll hear about older horses as they are rather than as we might like them to be. It's the story that is appropriate to this age group – the writing will be appreciated by anyone.

Pony and horse lovers will have to be surgically separated from this book and the first in the series but even children with no interest will still enjoy the book. It's a good story, you see and I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.

Slightly younger children will enjoy anything by Pippa Funnell. Horse lovers will adore The Silver Brumby by Elyne Mitchell.

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