Paint The Wind
by Pam Munoz Ryan
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Book Reviews of Paint The Wind
Book Review: Horses, horses, horses
Summary: 5 Stars
I always enjoy a Pam Munoz Ryan book. Her novels make me hum with happiness and invite me to sit down for a cozy read. She also seems to write about things that I have a personal connection to.
The title, Paint the Wind, evokes the beloved, King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry and the book will have great appeal for those same horse loving book readers. The story opens as the mare, Artemisia, is about to give birth. Artemisia is worried about the baby as her last foal was stillborn.
The scene shifts to Pasadena, California where Maya lives with her stern and autocratic grandmother. Photos of her father abound throughout the house but all images and mentions of her mother are forbidden. Maya has only the haziest of memories of her early childhood but she treasures a box of plastic horses that belonged to her mother.
The grandmother's sudden death brings many things to light, including the news that Maya was supposed to have been spending her summers with her mother's family in Wyoming all these past years.
Emotionally withdrawn after her years with her grandmother, Maya has a hard time responding to the warmth and love of her grandfather, great-aunt and great-uncle when she arrives in Wyoming to live with them. Her keen interest in horses helps her find her place and even tolerate the hostility from her cousin, Payton. He is used to being the only kid at the family camp along the Sweetwater River during the summer. With the help of her Aunt Vi she begins to learn about her mother and family.
Maya's story is inter-cut with scenes of Artemisia, her colt and the rest of the herd. Maya and Aunt Vi see the herd captured in a "gathering" of wild mustangs but the mare and her colt evade the round-up. Without the protection of a stallion, the horses are vulnerable to attack from predators so Maya spends long hours in the saddle looking for them. When a disaster traps Maya in a remote area and she must win Artemisia's trust in order to survive and get home.
PMR tells the story in four parts, "Walk," "Jog," "Lope," and "Gallop" which match Maya's emotional growth and happiness. Parts of the storyline felt a little forced. I wondered why Maya's grandfather had never challenged the custody arrangements for his granddaughter.
This is a book for horse lovers. Fans of Terri Farley's books will be familiar with the controversial "gathering" of wild horses. There is a glossary and a list of websites, media, and books for readers who want to know more about the subject.
Paint the Wind celebrates swimming in a river, days of horseback riding, camp chores and caring for the horses -- a summer vacation that any horse loving kid would give their iPod and Playstation III to enjoy.
Book Review: A beautifully written story filled with spirited characters and colorful descriptions of the amazing Wyoming landscape
Summary: 5 Stars
Eleven-year-old Maya has lived in the sterile and cheerless environment of her grandmother's regime for the past six years, ever since her parents died. And every single day she is reminded of her father's lost life by her grandmother who mourns his death with a crippling grief. Maya's mother, on the other hand, hovers only in the shadows of her memory, while her grandmother occasionally utters a horror or two about the woman who ruined his life.
Maya only has a faded photo of her mother astride a beautiful mustang horse and a few small horse figurines as remembrances. Maya must keep these items hidden from her grandmother or risk losing them forever. They are the only light she has left in an otherwise bleak and lonely life.
The household, which includes Maya, her grandmother and an ever-changing rotation of housekeepers, is void of laughter, joy, warmth or improprieties of any kind. Maya lives in a prison of prosperity, with a fancy house and an expensive education but no friends, freedoms or fairy tales. Maya's one treat every week is her trip to the library, where she devours books on horses. And though she knows all about the different breeds and interesting facts about them, she can't remember ever having met one face to face.
This all changes rather abruptly when Maya's grandmother suffers a massive stroke and dies. The lawyer shows up and announces that she will be living with her mother's family. He is shocked to find out that she hasn't been visiting that side of the family every summer as the courts had decided; her grandmother lied to them about shared custody.
All too soon, Maya finds herself on a plane bound for the wilds of Wyoming and the family horse ranch. She is torn, feeling curious about her mother's side of the family and nervous because of the off-color remarks from her grandmother. But what Maya discovers soars beyond her wildest dreams, and as she gets to know one of the wild mustang horses living near the camp, she finally begins to shed the prison walls installed by her grieving grandmother.
PAINT THE WIND is a beautifully written story filled with spirited characters and colorful descriptions of the amazing Wyoming landscape. Award-winning author Pam Munoz Ryan delightfully weaves two stories together --- that of strong-willed Maya, forced into hibernation and just begging to bloom, and the beautiful tobiano Paint horse, Artemisia, forced into isolation due to a wild horse roundup and desperate for love --- to create a charming novel.
--- Reviewed by Chris Shanley-Dillman, author of FINDING THE LIGHT and THE BLACK POND
Book Review: A Teacher's Perspective
Summary: 5 Stars
Paint the Wind features a young girl who has lost her parents and her primary caregiver, her paternal grandmother, before coming to live with her maternal family. Maya's grandmother was very protective to the point of sheltering her from the world. When she goes to live with her mom's family, she learns a whole new way of life, rides horses, and is caught in a survival situation in the woods after an earthquake. The story is fast paced at times, while also being slow and descriptive in places.
I learned so much about horseback riding by reading this book. Maya's bravery was amazing to me as I've just begun to ride horses again in the past year. It is a humbling experience and I am in awe of young children who ride with Maya's skill and grace. A look inside the training was very interesting.
In the classroom, I would share this book with any horse-lover. It would be a great book for adventerous young girls looking for survival stories with strong female characters. In addition, a study of earthquakes might occur as an offshoot of this reading. I would certainly show the location of the story on a map and investigate the earthquake history of the region.
Book Review: Loved it!
Summary: 5 Stars
My 3rd grade daughter is a horse lover, and we were looking for a horse book that featured a girl when we found this one. We loved this story. I wasn't quite sure what the connection was with Artemesia at the beginning of the story. Maya's lying bothered me quite a bit as well. But I loved how it all turned out.
To my daughter it was just a neat story with horses and scary parts and a happy ending. To me it was a work of art, weaving life lessons and even great art into a beautiful tapestry.
Book Review: Good family-reading story
Summary: 5 Stars
My husband and I took turns reading it to our kids, age 6 and 8. We all enjoyed the story. The writing is quite nice, and the vocabularly is just right for an 8-year old, and OK for a 6-year old. There are quite a few "big" words that are good to explain to kids, but not so many that they can't understand the compelling story. I recommend it!