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The Georges And The Jewels (2009)

by Jane Smiley(Favorite Author)

3.91 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0375862277 (ISBN13: 9780375862274)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Knopf Books for Young Readers

series

Horses of Oak Valley Ranch

review 1: This is the kind of horse novel I've been looking for, one that is actually about horses and is not a soap opera set in a barn. The central story here is about a 12-year-old girl who is trying to cope with an uncooperative horse called Ornery George. She is expected to help her father train him so that he can be sold at a profit, but the horse keeps bucking her off. While she's perfectly comfortable with the other horses at her dad's barn, she's scared of Ornery George, and for good reason.There are a number of other threads woven into this one. Her parents are born-again Christians, which creates some complications in her life. I like that her religious family is portrayed neither as positive nor negative. Her father is sometimes kind and sometimes unreasonable. She seems... more to like her church reasonably well, but her family's restrictions cause her problems with school and friends.School is another sub-thread. She's in the 7th grade and struggling with a girl who seems to be out to "steal" her best friend, and also a clique of four other girls which she tries simply to avoid. Mean girls are a staple of this genre, but these girls are more complex. There is no over-the-top villain, just a group of girls jockeying for status, sometimes in unsavory ways.Three different trainers help the heroine out with Ornery George, and only one of them is able to make any progress with him. The training methods are presented without judgement. It's not a case of evil trainer vs. good trainer, but more a case of trying out different methods and learning a method that works for this horse.
review 2: Abby lives on a farm with her born-again family. Her father buys horses cheap and trains them so that "a little girl can ride them" and resells them for a higher price. To keep Abby from growing attached, he calls all the male horses "George" and all the female horses "Jewel." As Abby tries to figure out the problems of one horse she calls "Ornery George" and dealing with a surprise new foal she names Jack, Abby also has to deal with friendship troubles in middle school and navigating her slightly dysfunctional family.I've never read anything by Jane Smiley, but I know she does write adult fiction, and this book has a maturity level I don't usually find when I read middle grade horse books. The setting, California in the 1960's, is unusual enough (unless you're reading classic horse fiction), but Abby also lives in a religiously strict family, with parents who don't like the idea of their daughter learning about the Catholic missions that founded many California cities. Yet the family isn't portrayed as being iron fisted, and Abby stands up for herself in her case to name the horses while accepting other rules. The situation with her brother Danny's estrangement should be interesting in the future. There was plenty of riding as well, with several philosophies of breaking a horse contrasted. Abby's struggles socially in middle school might on the surface appear to be outdated, but there are still cliques, and passive aggressive bullying, and little things blow up into huge drama, especially when boys are involved.All in all, this was a step above most middle grade horse books, which made it an enjoyable read for an adult as well. less

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