There is a saying – children’s books are not just for children. This could not be truer than with children’s literature today. Does a story about a boy wizard spring to mind?
Taking this adage to heart, I picked up a book I had never read as a child. Its title does it a disservice, because the phrase "My Friend Flicka" does not bring to mind a powerful book about the triumphs and tragedies involved in mustang rearing in 1930’s Wyoming. However, this is precisely the story My Friend Flicka tells. With poetic language that shows her love for her adopted state of Wyoming, Mary O’Hara plunges the reader into a different world - a world at once quiet and harsh, full of struggle and pain, and haunted by the various cries of life in the western wilderness – from the bloodcurdling roar of a wildcat, to the screams of an enraged stallion, down to the anguished tears of a boy for his adopted horse.
The young hero of this book, Ken, is a dreamer. The reader is not sure what his emotional problem is at first, only that he is different and gets lost in daydreams and details whereby he cannot focus on one task for any long period of time. In today’s parlance, we might call this attention deficit disorder or even mild autism, however, in Mary O’Hara’s time, there were no such labels. Instead, the boy is simply seen as difficult by his father, unable to be given responsibility; and by his mother as special and needing of extra care.
The parents are not removed from the story as is often the case in modern children’s horse literature. The parents' stories are important too, and we learn how Ken’s mother views life from her gentle way of training mustangs. Ken’s father sees things differently – if a horse is ‘loco,’ then they are no good. To him, the only worthwhile horse is a tame horse.
Their farm is a mustang breeding ranch. All the horses are wild, living and breeding freely on the plains, and therefore in need of halter breaking before they can be sold. Much detail in the book is given to how the horses are ‘broken’, a sad word and practice that still, unfortunately, occurs today.
When the wildest of them, an untameable mare named Rocket, gives birth to a little golden filly, Ken’s father figures the filly is of bad blood, loco and no good. The only problem is that Ken loves the foal and decides she will be his horse. To tell you any more of the story would be to spoil it for you. I can only highly recommend you read this book. It is a page turner, keeping you riveted until the end.
My Friend Flicka is a passionate tale told by a former Hollywood screenwriter who left all the glitz behind for the real gold in the world – a quiet life on the range, close to the animals and the only true stars. Take a journey into her canvas today. You will not regret it.
Buy Flicka book with necklace at Amazon
Buy Flicka movie starring young Roddy McDowell at Amazon
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