Robin Marshall is fed up with sharing everything with her brothers and sisters. She wants nothing more than the opportunity to spend the summer at her aunt Cora's riding stable. She envisions white fences, a huge stable with gleaming-flanked horses, and herself, immaculately turned out in crisp breeches and boots, instructing scrubbed-faces smiling youngsters. When the telegram comes saying she's welcome, she's thrilled. But the reality of Sycamore Stables is far more grubby and workaday than Robin pictured. Cora and her son Butch are operating the riding stable on a shoestring, and it shows.

Hard work and heart, challenges and opportunities, and a young girl's coming of age - this story, set in the 1960's, lacks cell phones and the fast pace of today's electronic world. But despite that, the story endures. A good read for young horse lovers. ( )