by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 24, 2009

Jessie Haas lives in a small house that she built herself, with her husband, in Vermont. And she's captured her love of nature in a series of books about a little girl named Nora who visits her grandfather's farm. "Hurry!" showed the grandfather rushing to harvest hay before a big summer storm. But the second book in the series finds Nora worrying about the farmer's mare Bonnie, who's about to give birth to a colt.

"Before bed Gramp goes to the barn," Haas writes, and the little girl - Nora - watches from her window upstairs. That afternoon her grandfather had led the horse from the field to a bed of stall. And the next morning, she checks the horse before breakfast. "Her sides are big and round," Haas notes significantly.

"The foal is still inside her."

What I love about this series is the way it creates interest just by relying on the simple details about life on the farm. The next time Nora checks, there's no colt in the stall, only Bonnie, "fat and patient." The girl feeds Bonnie an apple core. She takes Bonnie for a walk. "But the foal doesn't come out that day."

Jos. A. Smith had been an art instructor for 30 years when he was tapped to provide the illustrations. He imagines the farm in a series of engaging scenes - the inside of a barn, the dark farm at night, the girl tending the horse, or kittens on the porch. He understands what's important: the people and the animals. But he always provides realistic details, creating a crucial context for the story's simple drama.

Four times the girl's grandmother checks on the horse. Six more times the little girl checks herself. "Bonnie blinks when they turn on the light," Haas notes, in a wonderful shift of perspective. "She is sleepy, and they keep waking her up."

At breakfast her grandfather yawns. Her grandmother bakes bread - and checks the mare again. All of Nora's classmates ask her anxiously about the colt. "Nora has to say no," Haas writes, building the anticipation still more. The girl's grandfather needs a nap from the lack of sleep, and her grandmother's feet are tired.

But that makes it that much sweeter when the big moment finally arrives. The timer has just rung for his grandmother's casserole, and the girl first pauses to watch the kittens on the porch. But when Nora enters the barn, the horse's voice is "deep and special." The horse is licking swirls across the damp hair of her brown foal.

"Oh, Bonnie!" Nora says. "He's beautiful!"

Learn more about this author, Moe Zilla.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.