JACK

by Brian Carter ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 17, 1987

From the English author of A Black Fox Running (1982), a simple boy/horse story that turns into a strong antiwar statement. In the years just before WW I, in Devon, Jack McKenna (son of an Irish immigrant family) goes to work on a stud farm, and through uncommon aptitude becomes an important horse-handler at an early age. His special favorite, treasured from colthood, is a lovely roan cart-horse named Beth--none of your fancy thoroughbreds for Jack, thank you. The two of them--and Beth is a viewpoint character here, replete with horsey thoughts and fancies--have a fairly typical (and slightly dumbish) Youth and Trusty Steed relationship, but all changes with the fighting in France. The peace-loving Jack refuses to become cannon fodder, even after one of his brothers is killed and the other gassed, but one day Beth is conscripted into the artillery. ""They've betrayed us like they've betrayed the horses,"" Jack thinks bitterly. ""We are the horses."" But he joins up and finally tracks down a terrified Beth on the Western Front--a search that leads to some heartbreaking, horrific scenes of what combat must have been like for animal as well as man. In the end, Jack is killed during the Battle of the Somme, but a kindly officer entrusts Beth to the care of a French farmer and eventually returns her to England after the war. A real tear-jerker, and not just for equine fanciers, either.

Pub Date: April 17, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Beaufort

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1987

Categories: FICTION