Magically Maximus

May 15, 2022
A horse-loving girl and her princess-obsessed sister conjure a horse straight out of Disney. Nine-year-old Maddie Phillips and her 6-year-old sister, Evie, have just moved from the city to a run-down farm called Horsetail Hollow. Alas for Maddie, who's ridden at summer camp, there's no resident horse, though there is a barn. Maddie's little sister loves dressing up as a princess and reading fairy tales. When they make a wish together at a mysterious old well on the farm, it's granted in the form of Maximus, the horse from Disney's version of "Rapunzel," Tangled. After learning to care for and ride Maximus in the royal manner in which he prefers, the girls realize that he needs to go back to his own world so he can complete his role in the fairy tale. The story's conclusion assumes and relies upon the reader knowing the characters from Tangled--and ends with the appearance of Angus, the horse from Disney's Brave. The book reads like one long tie-in, not badly written but in no way realistic or all that interesting. Illustrations show Maximus and the Tangled characters exactly as they are in the film; Maddie and Evie are typical big-eyed Disney girls. The cover art depicts the girls as light-skinned with dark hair; their race and ethnicity are not specified in the text. Limp as it is, the name Disney probably guarantees this book an audience. (Fiction. 6-9)

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March 15, 2022
Grades 2-4 Maddie has always dreamed of owning a horse but couldn't afford to buy one and had nowhere to keep it. Now that her family has moved to a dilapidated farm, her parents spend all their spare time repairing the house, leaving eight-year-old Maddie and six-year-old Evie, her sister, to entertain themselves. When the girls find an old-fashioned wishing well, each makes a wish on the same coin. Magically, a horse appears outside Maddie's window the next day. Evie recognizes him as a character from her book of fairy tales. Soon the sisters and Maximus, the horse, travel into a fairy-tale land for an adventure evidently related to Tangled, the Disney film loosely based on the "Rapunzel" story. Like Catrinella's gray-scale illustrations, featuring characters with enormous eyes and expressive faces, the inventive narrative has plenty of child appeal. As the story draws to a close, Maddie and Evie make a surprising discovery that will undoubtedly lead them into a second adventure in the Horsetail Hollow series. An inviting choice for transitional readers who love horses and Disney princess movies.

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