Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Title: Brighty of the Grand Canyon Author: Marguerite Henry Publication Info: Rand, McNally & Co., 1953. 224 pages. Source: My bookshelves--I've owned this since childhood Publisher's Blurb: Long ago, a lone little burro roamed the high cliffs of the Grand Canyon and touched the hearts of all who knew him: a grizzled old miner, a big-game hunter, even President Teddy Roosevelt. Named Brighty by the prospector who befriended him, he remained a free spirit at heart. But when a ruthless claim-jumper murdered the prospector, loyal Brighty risked everything to bring the killer to justice. Brighty's adventures have delighted generations of readers, and he has become the symbol of a joyous way of life. Some people say that you can even see his spirit roving the canyon on moonlit nights-forever wild, forever free. My Review: I read all of Marguerite Henry's books as a child, and loved them. This one always was a bit hard for me, because there's some scary stuf...

Title: Rough Magic: Riding the World's Loneliest Horse Race Author: Lara Prior-Palmer Publication Info: May 2019, Catapult. 288 pages. Source: Library digital resources Publisher's Blurb: For fans of Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk , this is the extraordinary debut memoir of a young woman who traveled to Mongolia to compete in the world’s longest, toughest horse race, and emerged as its youngest and first-ever female winner. At the age of nineteen, Lara Prior-Palmer discovered a website devoted to “the world’s longest, toughest horse race”—an annual competition of endurance and skill that involves dozens of riders racing a series of twenty-five wild ponies across 1,000 kilometers of Mongolian grassland. On a whim, she decided to enter the race. As she boarded a plane to East Asia, she was utterly unprepared for what awaited her. Riders often spend years preparing to compete in the Mongol Derby, a course that recreates the horse messenger system developed by Geng...