Winnie the Horse Gentler

Note to self: Sometimes life is so unfair. For people—and for horses. Winnie Willis has already answered eight horse e-mails for the Pet Help Line. Now she’s stumped. She can’t think of anything to tell someone whose biggest problem is that her parents care too much about her life. After all, Winnie’s dad has been so tied up lately with his inventions and his “friend, ” Madeline, that they’ve barely talked. When a buckskin disappears from the run-down Happy Trails stable, Winnie and friend Kaylee investigate-and find out what it truly means to be “part of a herd.”

Nobody has ever needed Winnie before. But she already has a big problem of her own. The newborn foal has lost her mother, and the world doesn’t look friendly. Winnie knows how the filly feels. It’s been two years since Winnie lost her mom, and she still has trouble trusting humans. So why should the foal trust her? But time is running out. Then Sal, a classmate, arrives with a little surprise-and a lesson about friendship that Winnie will never forget.

Just as Christmas arrives, Winnie learns an unforgettable lesson about sacrificial love and God’s Christmas gift to the world.

Winnie misses her mom more than ever, and her dad has invited some new woman for Thanksgiving dinner. More than ever, Winnie needs God to open her eyes to see his hand at work.

It’s up to Winnie to solve a mystery and save a circus horse. But Winnie faces her own mystery as she struggles to keep her family from changing and to hold on to things as they are. She’ll learn to appreciate God, who never changes no matter what else may threaten.

Winnie Willis has confidence to spare-on horseback that is. If only she could have the same self-assurance at school. When Winnie gets a dreaded school assignment, her whole world is affected. Worse, an accident on horseback shatters the one area of her life where everything was going fine. Now she’ll have to find the courage outside herself to face her classmates and the horse she let down.

Winnie learns something about people as well as horses when she begins to value the power of praise and encouragement.

Winnie’s fearful heart finally begins to trust God again as she tries to gentle the horse of her dreams, Wild Thing.