Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel

Half Broke Horses is Laura Ingalls Wilder for adults, as riveting and dramatic as Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa or Beryl Markham's West with the Night. Destined to become a classic, it will transfix readers everywhere."Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did." So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls's no-nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At fifteen, she left home to teach in a frontier town--riding five hundred miles on her pony, alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car and fly a plane. And, with her husband, Jim, she ran a vast ranch in Arizona. She raised two children, one who is Jeannette's memorable mother, Rosemary Smith Walls, unforgettably portrayed in The Glass Castle. Lily survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy. She bristled at prejudice of all kinds--against women, Native Americans, and anyone else who didn't fit the mold. Rosemary Smith Walls always told Jeannette that she was like her grandmother, and in this true-life novel, Jeannette Walls channels that kindred spirit. Half Broke Horses is Laura Ingalls Wilder for adults, as riveting and dramatic as Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa or Beryl Markham's West with the Night. Destined to become a classic, it will transfix readers everywhere.

Author: Jeannette Walls
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Published: 09/07/2010
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.20w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9781416586296

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 6.5
Point Value: 13
Interest Level: Upper Grade
Quiz #/Name: 133777 / Half Broke Horses: A True Life Novel


Review Citation(s):
Entertainment Weekly 09/17/2010 pg. 142
People Weekly 09/27/2010 pg. 65
New York Times Book Review 09/26/2010 pg. 24
People Weekly 12/12/2011 pg. 61
People 05/28/2012 pg. 51

About the Author
Walls, Jeannette: - Jeannette Walls graduated from Barnard College and was a journalist in New York. Her memoir, The Glass Castle, has been a New York Times bestseller for more than six years. She is also the author of the instant New York Times bestsellers The Silver Star and Half Broke Horses, which was named one of the ten best books of 2009 by the editors of The New York Times Book Review. Walls lives in rural Virginia with her husband, the writer John Taylor.