Review Detail

A Horse Named Sky

Middle Grade Fiction 2279

Horses of the Wild West

October 15, 2023 (Updated: June 06, 2026)

Overall rating

4.3

Plot

4.0

Characters

4.0

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

5.0

A colt is born in Nevada in the mid 19th century, and named Sky by his family. He is raised next to Storm, a foal, and the two have a good life until humans start encroaching on their home waters. The group's stallion, Thunder, manages to keep everyone safe, but when Sky gets to be old enough, he has to either fight Thunder for dominance, or leave. He chooses to leave. Water has been hard to find, and Storm follows him. They are both eventually caught by humans, but Storm manages to escape. Sky is told by the other horses that he will at least have water and food, but not being able to run free makes Sky unhappy. He's eventually branded and trained by a young human who is not well treated by the adults. Eventually, Sky runs away, and finds Storm in another human camp. They manage to break out, and run to the Steens Mountain area in Oregon where they can live freely and in peace.

Good Points

There is a wealth of information at the end of the book about many aspects of history, wild horses, and consrvation. There's a map of the area at this period in history, and additional information about the Pony Express, native flora and fauna, silver mining, and Native Americans. The bibliography points interested readers to other resources.

The best part about this book for me was the fantastic illustrations by Kirbi Fagan, done in a style reminiscent of the Wesley Dennis illustrations in Marguerite Henry's midcentury horse books like Misty of Chicoteague. These are not just a few pictures on the pages, but whole pages, sometimes black with white illustrations, that blend seamlessly with the story and provide an evocative background. The details of the trees, the variety of the small animals, and the feeling of motion in the drawings of the horses are all so well done, and add so much to the story.

This is written from Sky's point of view, so there are a lot of references to human items and behaviors in odd terms, like "grabbers" for hands and "clickers" for guns. For some reason, the mules seem to have an accent. This makes the books perfect for readers who liked Erin Hunter's Warriors books or series like Lasky's Horses of the Sky.

Fans of Nir's Once Upon a Horse series, Farley's Phantom Stallion books, Skylar's Shadow of a Doubt, and Elliot's Bea and the New Deal Horse will love learning about the plight of wild horses in the US west, and take the environmental message to heart.