Terrible Horses

Like most siblings, the boy narrator of this story and his elder sister’s relationship has its ups and downs, often about sharing things. From little brother’s point of view, big sister is pretty cool but it’s often she who causes the two to fall out and physical fights then result.

In order to release the tension inside himself, the boy retreats to his bedroom and there writes tales featuring terrible horses, with himself as a lonely pony. But when the boy takes things from his sister without first asking her permission; inevitably their aggression escalates. Again, the boy goes to his room and takes comfort in creating another terrible horse story wherein he is a pony unable to compete, speak or sleep and then exhausted at all that’s happened, he does fall fast asleep. When he wakes up his terrible horse book has gone missing. We then see that his sister has the book and one hopes, this will lead to a better understanding of her young sibling and his powerful feelings of isolation.

Ken Wilson-Max’s powerful mixed media, somewhat whimsical scenes, work beautifully in tandem with the author’s carefully chosen, poetic words, the former showing that the boy uses hearing aids – an astute case of showing not telling. Altogether a demonstration of how storytelling can result in better understanding between people.