A Native American girl becomes friends with a wild stallion after she is lost in a storm. After being found, she stays with the wild horses and finds she has a connection with them. She becomes part of the herd and became a wild horse herself. Beautiful illustrations and pictures that connect directly to the reading and help to visualize the story. The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses is a great book to use as a mentor text to discuss folk-tales/myths and how there is a reason behind these stories. ( )

2023 - ‘70’s Immersion Reading Challenge

READING LEVEL: 4.1 AR POINTS: 0.5

The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses by Paul Goble (1978) 36 pages. Read online at Internet Archive

A beautifully written and illustrated Native American story of a girl who loved and honored her wild horses. When a storm caused them to run away with her and become lost, the horses invited her to live with them.

When her people finally found her, she did return home, but was very unhappy. The stallion of the group of horses missed her and would stand high on an overlooking mountain beckoning her to return to them.

Her parents saw her sadness and allowed her to return to the wild horses. She would visit her parents every year and bring them a colt. But, one year she did not visit and was never seen again. But, they did notice a beautiful mare with a beautiful mane floating like a cloud, riding along side the stallion. It was believed the girl now rode with the Horse People, a belief of Native Americans that they have relatives that ride with the wild horses.

Read FREE here, at archive.org:

https://archive.org/search?query=the+girl+who+loved+wild+horses

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul Goble was not Native American. He is actually a British-American who specializes in writing and illustrating amazing Native American books for children. This book won the Caldecott Medal as the year’s best illustrated book for children. ( )

This is a beautiful story with fantastic illustrations. Paul Goble has written so many great books and this one is no exception. The story follows a native tribe in the plains, they follow the buffalo and live in tipis, so they were a nomadic group. The story focuses on one girl in the tribe who loved the horses most of all. The tribe members notice that she seems to understand them better than others and she has deep affection for them. She gets carried off one day by the horses when a sudden storm scares them. They run until they reach the land of wild horses. She lives with them until her family finds her. They try to bring her home, and though she loves her family, she wishes most to be with the horses. The tale ends with the tribe believing that she finally became one of the wild horses, forever free. The story is simple and yet so beautiful. The book shows the beauty of nature and of animals roaming wild. ( )

There was a girl in the village who loved horses. She led the horses to drink at the river. She spoke softly and they followed. People noticed that she understood horses in a special way.

This story follows the life of a young girl who is a part of the Navajo tribe. While she loves her family and her community, her true passion lies with the horses. She spends as much time as she can with them and forms a special bond with the horses she meets.. One day, she falls asleep and wakes amidst a terrible storm. The she flings herself on the back of a nearby horse who gallops her to safety. However, she has been carried far away from her tribe. She eventually returns to her family to discover that she truly belongs free with the wild horses. ( )