School Library Journal Review
PreS-K-Kumin imagines a jocular tale about a horse named Harry with the unusual ability to calm his fellow equines in their horse-show barn. When six-year-old Algernon Adams III arrives with a nasty attitude and a barrel of unruly tricks, he puts the whole stable in an uproar. However, the boy gets his comeuppance when one of his daily pranks backfires and he ends up locked in the grain bin. How Harry saves the day and makes a lifelong friend of Algie provides fodder for Kumin's agile pen. Told with a sure sense of rhyme and an intoxicating beat, the story allows plenty of space for Moser's captivating illustrations, which joyfully depict the horses in ways both amusing and physically pleasing. Furthermore, Harry always appears in a bright green bridle, cleverly diffusing any chance to confuse him with his barn mates. With a dust jacket featuring Harry and Algie in a face-off, this book is an irresistible delight!-Barbara Elleman, Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, MA (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Harry the horse is not a looker ("His ears were long and his neck was short"), he's mischievous and dexterous, and he has a knack for calming the show horses that share the barn with him. All runs smoothly until Algernon Adams the Third, "at the age of six,/ Arrived with his bag of horrendous tricks." The boy sasses the trainer and spooks the horses before getting himself trapped in a grain bin, which Harry (eventually) unlocks, bringing about a turnaround in Algernon's behavior. Mixing naturalism, anthropomorphism, and slapstick comedy, this story, like Harry, is a bit unusual itself. Kumin's (Mites to Mastodons) verse has a variable cadence, and in places the language seems forced for the sake of the rhyme ("He climbed to the hayloft with an umbrella/ Till the trainer ordered, 'Get down young fella!' "). Moser's (Once Upon a Twice) watercolors imbue Harry with plenty of attitude, playing up his homeliness in unflattering "camera" angles, and even having him pull faces for readers, to garish but humorous effect-when Harry "smile[s] a smile" after Algernon gets trapped, it ain't pretty. Ages 4-8. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
