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Big Guy: A School Horse Story
Celia Ryker’s Big Guy is a warm, lively novel told from the perspective of Full Time, a successful show horse whose rider calls him Big Guy. When arthritis ends his competitive career, he’s moved from a spacious stall and polished show routine into a barn full of lesson horses. At first, Big Guy sees the change as a humiliating demotion. He misses the ribbons, the careful grooming, and Nancy, the girl who rode and loved him for years. His new life gradually opens into something larger, though, as he learns the rhythms of pasture life, meets a memorable herd, and discovers what it means to belong.
Big Guy’s voice is the book’s greatest strength. He’s proud, observant, funny, and sometimes wonderfully vain. His misunderstandings of human objects and customs, including balloons, swimming pools, and zoos, create gentle comedy without making him seem foolish. The other horses are just as distinctive. Sweet Shorty steadies the group, cranky Kaiser hides vulnerability behind bluster, Brownie offers hard-earned wisdom, and Slippy treats every fence as a personal challenge. Their conversations give the barn the feeling of a bustling neighborhood where everyone knows everyone else’s habits, history, and weak spots.
The story also has more emotional weight than its playful premise might suggest. Big Guy must cope with aging, physical pain, wounded pride, separation, and the fear of becoming unwanted. His early description of school horses as “old leather halters whose brass buckles and rings are worn and dull” captures the sadness shared by animals whose earlier careers and owners are gone. Ryker doesn’t rush Big Guy through these feelings. He makes mistakes, insults his new companions, worries about how others see him, and slowly earns his place in the herd through loyalty and courage.
The horse-centered viewpoint also gives the book an appealing way to explore care and responsibility. Readers see how confusing even well-intended human decisions can feel to an animal that doesn’t understand the full conversation. At the same time, the barn is filled with people who adjust workloads, tend injuries, sit through the night with a sick horse, and try to find safe homes for animals who can no longer work. The riding and stable details feel natural rather than pasted in, and the glossary makes the terminology accessible. Ryker’s note that the horses were based on animals she knew adds another layer of affection to the story.
By the end, Big Guy has become a thoughtful story about identity, usefulness, friendship, and the many forms a good life can take. Big Guy doesn’t simply trade one career for another. He learns to see himself and the horses around him more clearly. His final realization, “We’re all real horses,” is simple, but it lands because the whole book has built toward it. This would be an inviting read for young horse lovers, but its compassion for aging animals and its understanding of pride, change, and community give it plenty to offer adult readers too.
Pages: 184 | ASIN: 1578691745
My Grandmother’s Life
Augusta follows a thirteen-year-old farm girl forced into marriage and motherhood who, after being abandoned in the city, must find a way to survive for herself and her children. Where did the idea for this novel come from?
This novel is based on my grandmother’s life. The image of her on the cover was from a 2.5×3.5 inch daguerreotype. When my aunt Ivon gave it to me, she said it was taken on her wedding day, and she was wearing her eighth-grade graduation dress. EEEK.
You went into great detail to get the setting right, especially in regard to money, life in the city, and even the emergence of home appliances. Did you do a lot of research to maintain the accuracy of the subject?
I researched life in Arkansas at the turn of the twentieth century. Finding out what it was like for the very poor in 1920s Detroit was a surprise. My mother told me that my grandmother came to Detroit wearing a feed sack as a dress.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
My father was Buddy. He told me that his mother made him share, with other children, the goodies he received when he was in the hospital. I made a point of discovering what candies were popular at the time and what toys children may have received.
What is the next book you are working on, and when can your fans expect it to be out?
My next book will be out in April 2023. Big Guy is a middle-grade children’s book. Like Black Beauty, this story is told by the horse. I trained horses and gave riding lessons for many years. The personalities that I convey are my imagining of the personalities of horses that I knew and loved.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Amazon
The historical novel begins in 1906 on a rural farm in Arkansas, where Augusta was raised on a hard-knock farm and married off to the widowed father of one of her classmates at the age of thirteen. They flee the failed cotton crops for factory work in Detroit, and Augusta must navigate city life alone as a new mother. Abandoned by her second husband, Augusta works as a waitress, but with four children to provide for, she is forced into a decision that will haunt her forever.
Augusta
Augusta is a beautiful mix of fiction and nonfiction anecdotes about a tenacious woman working to keep her family afloat in the early 1900s. Based on the author’s grandmother and family stories, Augusta tells the tale of a young farm girl married off at thirteen, abandoned, and then remarried to another abusive man. Her second husband, Ottis, is fired, leaving Augusta to be their family’s sole provider. While the storm of calamity continues to affect her family, Augusta must make the hardest decision of her life: whether to keep her youngest, Lottie, or allow her to be adopted by a wealthy family.
Augusta is a heart-wrenching novel centering on the unique circumstances of a woman in a time period where dependency on marriage to a man for survival was commonplace. Augusta represents a silent yet resilient generation of women who frugally kept their families fed and clothed throughout poverty-stricken years. Many of these women turned to each other and created pockets of communities and villages to ensure mutual aid. The writing captured this well. Augusta’s pain is clear, but so is her love for those around her. She was forced into a marriage and motherhood at an extremely young age and thus relied on her community to guide her through adulthood. Her sacrifices became an important parable for those of us who live in the present.
I enjoyed how the author filled in some gaps to complete Augusta’s story. The story of Al and Angie was particularly touching. They served as a silver lining and restored optimism back into the story. I also liked the historically accurate descriptions of appliances, money, and the like. Augusta’s wide-eyed incredulity towards appliances is interesting to witness. While modern readers will be interested in the simplicity of it, Augusta is impressed by what it can do. In a lot of ways, readers can still feel a connection to Augusta amidst the decades of distance.
Augusta is an essential story for all readers and will continue to be important for years to come.
Pages: 199 | ASIN : B0BQ9KLK2K
