In the rough-and-tumble Nevada landscape, where every day brings a new threat to the wild mustangs’ natural way of life, can Callie save her dream horse when disaster strikes?
Plucky thirteen-year-old Callie McLean loves nothing more than to watch the herd of wild mustangs frolic near her farm in the rocky desert of Northern Nevada. School’s out for the summer, which means three months of hanging out with horses and her best friend, Billie—and three months of freedom from classmates teasing her about her hippie clothes, two-dollar words, and organic-farmer parents. Callie gets to study with their equine veterinarian all summer too.
When Callie learns her favorite wild palomino mare, Moonbeam, is in foal, she’s ecstatic. And Cloud Dancer, the golden buckskin stallion, is going to be a father. Callie can’t imagine a more beautiful pairing. But her summer idyll is broken when the Bureau of Land Management rounds up the mustangs for penning and adoption. Callie is heartbroken that the majestic horses will no longer live in the wild. Maybe she can adopt Moonbeam herself. But when the trauma of the round-up leaves Moonbeam and her new foal, Moon Shadow, in trouble, it seems Callie might lose her dream horse and the new foal forever.
Chris Platt is an award-winning author of more than one dozen books for young readers about horses. Willow King was awarded the Golden Heart Award from the Romance Writers of America, and Star Gazer was part of the Kansas State Reading Circle Recommended Reading List, as well as a Parents’ Choice Approved book. Her other novels, including Moon Shadow, Storm Chaser, and Asta, have also earned prizes, such as the Bank Street College of Education Award, and have been championed by librarians, parents, and schools around the country.
Before earning her degree in journalism from the University of Nevada, Reno, Platt lived in Oregon, where she was one of the first female jockeys in the state. She is also a marathoner, plays the drums in a bagpipe band, and has a black belt in hard-style Shotokan Karate. She lives in Washoe Valley, Nevada, with her husband, four horses, two cats, and an ornery parrot.