The Horn Book Guide

SCIENCE

Ablow, Gail

A Horse in the House: And Other Strange but True Animal Stories

40 pp. | Candlewick | October, 2007 | Trade ISBN 978-0-7636-2838-3 $17.99

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Kathy Osborn. As the author's note confirms with multiple sources, each of these sixteen stories about unusual animals (a contact lens–wearing greyhound; a horse house pet) is true. Ablow uses a matter-of-fact tone, while Osborn goes for a more tongue-in-cheek, sometimes surreal treatment in her gouache paintings. The stories and pictures together provide lots of laughs and some good anecdotes to retell.

Reviewer: Susan Dove Lempke | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2008