Review: Hold on to Your Horses

Summary: Ideas are like horses, but Amy's tend to run wild. With a little help, Amy learns how to guide her ideas in constructive ways. -- www.holdontoyourhorses.com

HOLD ON TO YOUR HORSES, written by Sandra Tayler and illustrated by Angela Call, is a terrific book for young children. My four year old son absolutely loved the story and the pictures. In fact when I was reading the beginning of the book to him, he thought it was the funniest thing he ever heard -- I'm talking big-time belly laughs! Of course, he was laughing at Amy's antics that always got her in trouble.

My son obviously adored this book; but as a parent, I really appreciated a few things about it too. There were only a few sentences on each page with lots of big, bright pictures. This is very important to me when my son can't always sit still for an entire book. I also liked it because we could take to time to look at the pictures and listen to the story. Sometimes, he just wants to turn to the next page and fly through a book.

I also really liked the message in this story -- that Amy needs to treat her ideas like horses and hold them before she lets them run wild. While I'm not sure that my son completely understood this message, he did understand that Amy was doing bad things and needed to change her behavior. I like that the story gave me the opportunity to discuss my son's behavior issues with him. I used the book to explain to him that he needed to slows down before acting out and try to think things through. I definitely think he understood this concept after we talked about it. Now we'll see if his attitude and behavior changes as a result.

I also thought that the illustrations were incredibly colorful and very interesting to look at. Many of them were quite funny too -- I think adults will adore the illustrations as much, if not more, than the children. The pictures certainly enhanced the story and fit the mood perfectly. I especially liked how the artist was able to make Amy look like an imp by drawing her hair, eyes and smile a little on the wild side!

I highly recommend HOLD ON TO YOUR HORSES if you have a preschooler or young elementary school age child. I think every kid could learn something from reading this book. Whether your child is a little on the active side or just plays with someone who is, I think this story will better help them to understand this behavior.

If you'd like to read this book and see the wonderful illustrations, you can download the entire PDF here!