Taken from real-life experience, Patricia Polacco re-lives a story of a special summer she and her brother Richie spent in Michigan with their father. Patricia wanted to ride and own a horse as long as she can remember. This particular summer when she was ten years old, brought very unique memories.

Patricia's father introduces her to his friend Mrs. Mack who had a number of horses. Knowing their personalities, she chose Pal for Patricia to ride and learn from a very gentle horse. Over the years, Patricia learned many lessons regarding how to handle to horses. She had special affinity to a horse named Penny.

Throughout the years. Penny and Patricia had a special relationship. This is the story of Penny and Patricia.

Three and 1/2 Stars. ( )

29 copies

This story tells the memory of a young Patricia Polacco as she learns to ride horses. The central focus of the story is the relationships that Patricia makes with her instructor, Mrs. Mack, and other people and animals found at the stables that she goes to for riding lessons. Patricia has many coming of age moments in the story that come from her experiences at the stables. By the end of the book there is multiple big ideas that could be taken away. One being that humans and animals can form bonds that are more pure and genuine than most could imagine; another is to never give up—when you fall get back up again; another one would be that it’s never too late to reconcile with the past. All of these big ideas can be taken away from this story, thus resulting in it being somewhat overwhelming for younger audiences and is probably best suited for students in 3rd grade or above. In my opinion this book is by far one of the best children’s books written; most of Patricia Polacco’s work is however. To begin, the illustrations in the story are captivating and mesmerizing; the illustrations appear to be done in a signature style that uses blending colors, sketched lines, and accurate portrayals of the story. The illustartions accompany a well written passages that make tremendous use of descriptive and active language, dialogue, and personable thoughts. For example, while riding a horse Patricia says “A touch from my knee and she broke into an elegant trot.” The word elegant is an example of descriptive language that strays from generic words such as nice and good; the word broke is an active verb that does a much better job at accurately portraying the activity of the horse. The plot is the overall appealing factor of this story however. The plot is one that progresses at an ideal pace while stopping to focus on key moments. For example, Patricia is able to recount the entirety of her time at the stable in the story, but for 2 pages out of the story she focuses on only one event- her first day at the stable. While the book must include an entire summer, it is here that Polacco chose to stop and focus because without mentioning this part as in depth as she did then the audience wouldn’t be able to see Patricia’s growth as a person from beginning to end. ( )

Patricia was overly excited when her dad finally agreed to let her learn how to ride a horse. But when he drove her to a shabby stable in the roughest part of town she was disappointed. She hated there at first. She though it was an awful place with dirty and unfriendly people until she met Mrs. Mack. Mrs. Mack knew everything about horses and she taught Patricia how to ride one. Patricia became very fond with one particular horse name Penny.When Penny's health was poor, Patricia was by her side and comfort her. This is not one of favorite of Patricia Polacco's work. This book was inspired by the author's own personal experience with her childhood hero who help young people grow through working and riding with horses. I feel like it's more about the relationship between Patricia and Penny. There wasn't a strong connection between Patricia and Mrs. Mack like I was hoping for. I didn't see a moment in the book that define their bond with each other. ( )

I really enjoyed “Thank You, Mr. Falker” so I decided to read another book by Patricia Polacco. I liked “Mrs. Mack” for many reasons. First, the illustrations are incredible. I really like Polacco’s rich water-color illustrations because they enhance the text as well as engage the reader. Secondly, I really liked the big idea of “Mrs. Mack” which is that anyone can overcome their fears. The little girl, Pat, is terrified to be in the rough town of Dogpatch and to ride a horse named Penny but in the end she defeats her fears. I think that this is an important message for the reader because they will realize with hard work and bravery that many things are possible. Third, I really like the language/writing style used by Polacco. She is clear/concise yet also descriptive. She provided an especially good description of Penny: “The horse took a step, her muscles danced through her legs. She looked right at me with her beautiful intelligent eyes, her ears cupped forward as she made a whuffling sound that rippled through her nostrils”. Once again, I was very impressed with Polacco’s work and look forward to exploring some of her other books. ( )