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Summary
Summary
A contemporary and irresistible story from Patricia Reilly Giff
Lidie lives in Jales, Brazil, where she's free to ride, to be a wild girl, and to dream of going to live with her father and older brother, Rafael, in New York City. Finally Lidie is 12--time to leave Brazil for New York.
Meanwhile, a filly is born and begins her journey to a new home. As Lidie's story unfolds, so does the filly's.
Lidie's father runs a stable at a famous race track, and Rafael is training to be a jockey. As much as they want to make Lidie feel welcome, they still think of her as the little girl they left behind. They don't even know what a strong rider she is, and that she's determined to befriend and ride the wild filly her father has just bought: Wild Girl.
Author Notes
Patricia Reilly Giff was born in Brooklyn, New York on April 26, 1935. She knew she wanted to be a writer, even as a little girl. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Education from Marymount College, a Master's of Arts from St. John's University, and a Professional Diploma in Reading and a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Hofstra University.
After she graduated from college, she taught in the public schools in New York City until 1960 and then in the public schools in Elmont, New York from 1964 until 1971. She then became a reading consultant before finally, at the age of 40, deciding to write a book. She also worked as an educational consultant for Dell Yearling and Young Yearling Books and as an advisor and instructor to aspiring writers. Her first book, Today Was a Terrible Day, was published in 1980. She is the author of more than 100 children's books, as well as a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers.
Together with her husband, Giff opened "The Dinosaur's Paw," a children's bookstore named after one of her own stories. She is the author of the Polk Street School books. Lily's Crossing, about the homefront during World War II, was named a Newberry Honor Book by the American Library Association as well as an ALA Notable Book for Children. The novel also won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor. Her companion book to Lily's Crossing, Genevieve's War, won a 2018 Christopher Award. Pictures of Hollis Woods was also named a Newberry Honor Book and Nory Ryan's Song was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults.
Patricia Reilly Giff died on June 22, 2021. She was 86.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this tender if occasionally overdramatic novel, two-time Newbery Honor author Giff (Lily's Crossing; Pictures of Hollis Woods) relates the analogous stories of a 12-year-old girl and a filly. Lidie moves from Brazil to New York to join her brother and horse trainer father, who had left their homeland years earlier. She knows little English, misses the horse she loved to ride and is angry that her well-meaning father and brother still treat her like a little girl ("They didn't know me, not at all"). Lidie immediately bonds with Wild Girl, her father's new horse, which she observes "had been born in the warmth of the South... and brought here to this cold world, just as I had." There's little subtlety in the parallels Giff draws between the two: Lidie's late mother had called her "my wild girl" and, sensing the filly is lonesome, she thinks, "I knew how that was." Yet readers will find Lidie a strong protagonist, her difficulty in adjusting to her new life credible and her eventual feeling of belonging-she finally feels at home when riding Wild Girl for the first time-gratifying. Ages 8-12. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate) Since her mother's death five years before, twelve-year-old Lidie has been living with her aunt and uncle in her native Brazil. Now she is finally joining her father and older brother Rafael in Queens, New York, where they work training race horses. Headstrong, impulsive Lidie is excited to show Pai, her father (dubbed the Horseman), all she has learned about horses and riding, but Pai and Rafael still think of her as a little girl. They remember the seven-year-old who loved the color pink and Disney characters, and they can't see the real Lidie, the strong young woman who can ride Cavalo, the farmer's horse, bareback through the rough terrain of Jales, Brazil. While Lidie is painfully adjusting to a new home, school, and language, a filly is born in South Carolina. The alternating story of the filly unfolds slowly, from her birth to her trip to a Pennsylvania farm to the day Pai picks her up and takes on the challenge of her training. Together the two wild girls, horse and human, find exactly who they are meant to be and where they belong. Lidie's story is the tale of many immigrants, except that she is a stranger of sorts even to her own family. Rich characters and raw, real emotions make this much more than the usual horse story. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Twelve-year-old Lydie has lived with her aunt and uncle for five years, ever since her mother died and her father and older brother moved from Brazil to the U.S. Lydie is eager to join them, but when she arrives, she feels ill at ease with her new language, her new school, and even her family. Dissatisfied with the old, tame horse her father (a trainer) gives her to ride, she sets her sights on Wild Girl, a touchy, spirited filly. Mistakes, misunderstandings, and moments of awkwardness seem insurmountable, but slowly Lydie begins to feel at home. Chapters of Lydie's sensitive first-person narrative alternate with vivid third-person passages describing Wild Girl's life. Readers who choose the book because of the horse on the jacket will find a satisfying girl-meets-horse story. Those looking for a convincing, sometimes moving immigrant story will find it here as well. But the heart of this accessible chapter book is its fine, perceptive portrayal of Lydie and her family.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2009 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-6-Twelve-year-old Lidie must leave her beloved home in Brazil for a new life in New York. She reunites with Pai and her older brother, who left shortly after Mamae died five years earlier. Lidie's father and Rafael train racehorses for a wealthy benefactor. When she meets the filly Pai has dubbed Wild Girl, Lidie remembers her mother calling her by that name. The horse's story parallels hers, as they are both plunked down into an unfamiliar, sometimes harsh environment. But when at last Lidie rides Wild Girl, it is as if their spunky, spirited souls gloriously merge. This brief tale of the sense of powerlessness that accompanies childhood is magnified by the perspective of an immigrant girl. It also addresses the pain of separation from loved ones, and animal cruelty. These issues are dealt with in an evenhanded, never too sorrowful or desperate way. Readers will find hope and resiliency in this coming-of-age story.-Tracy Weiskind, Chicago Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Five years ago, when she was seven, Lidie's mother died and her father and brother left to train racehorses in America without her. In Brazil Lidie could quarrel with her cantankerous uncle, sing in her aunt's colorful kitchen or gallop horses up and down the hills, but when she finally gets to America she can't find words to express her anger, longing and frustration. Her well-meaning brother has painted her new room candy pink and decorated it with baby pictures, which she hates, and her silent father buys a broken-down school horse to teach her to ride. At school her lack of English has mortifying consequences. Only in her father's unsettled filly, the aptly named Wild Girl, does she find a kindred spiritand Lidie begins to think that if only she could ride Wild Girl, everything will be all right. As usual, Giff's characters are beautifully nuanced and entirely real, her prose is as streamlined and efficient as a galloping Thoroughbred and her quiet ending breaks your heart. A stakes winner. (Fiction. 8-14) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
1 Sudden light burst against the foal's closed eyes. She needed to open them, and to get on her legs, which trembled under her. It was the only thing she knew, that struggle to stand. And a feeling of warmth, the smell of warmth. She opened her eyes and heaved herself up under that dark shape. Its head turned toward her, a soft muzzle, a nicker of sound. Milk. Rich and hot. She could see almost in a full circle. Another creature was nearby, its smell unpleasant, but she turned back to the mare. When she was filled with milk, she leaned against the mare; she felt the swish of the mare's long tail against her face. She opened her mouth and felt the hair with her tongue. Safe. 2 My bedroom seemed bare without the horse pictures. Small holes from the thumbtacks zigzagged up and down the walls. Tio Paulo would have a fit when he saw them. Never mind Tio Paulo. I tucked the pictures carefully into my backpack. "You're going straight to America with me," I told them. Everything was packed now, everything ready. I was more than ready, too, wearing stiff new jeans, a coral shirt--my favorite color--and a banana clip that held back my bundle of hair. My outfit had taken almost all the dinheiro I'd saved for my entire life. "You look perfectly lovely," I said to myself in the mirror, then shook my head. "English, Lidie. Speak English." I started over. "You look very--" What was that miserable word anyway? Niece? Who could think with Tio Paulo downstairs in the kitchen, pacing back and forth, calling up every two minutes, "You're going to miss the plane!" I took a last look around at the peach bedspread, the striped curtains Titia Luisa and I had made, the books on the shelf under the window. But I had no time to think about it; there was something I wanted to do before I left. I rushed downstairs, tiptoeing along the hall, past Tio Paulo in the kitchen, and stepping over Gato, the calico cat who was dozing in the doorway. Out back, the field was covered with thorny flowers the color of tea, and high grass that whipped against my legs as I ran. I was late. Too bad for Tio Paulo. He'd have to drive more than his usual ten miles an hour. I whistled, and Cavalo, the farmer's bay horse, whinnied. He trotted toward me, then stopped, waiting. I climbed to the top of the fence and cupped my fingers around his silky brown ears before I threw myself on his back. "Go." I pressed my heels into his broad sides and held on to his thick mane. Last time. We thundered down the cow path, stirring up dust. My banana clip came off, and my hair, let loose, was as thick as the forelocks on Cavalo's forehead. We reached the blue house where we'd lived when Mamae was alive. I didn't have to pull on Cavalo's mane; he knew enough to stop. The four of us had been there together: Mamae, my older brother, Rafael; my father; and me. And it was almost as if Mamae were still there in the high bed in her room, linking her thin fingers with mine. The three of you will still belong together, Lidie, you'll make it a family. Shaking my head until my hair whipped into my face, I had held up my fingers: There are four of us, Mamae. Four. I remembered her faint smile. Ai, only seven years old, but still you're just like your father, the Horseman. Just like Pai. Two weeks later, Mamae was gone, flown up to the clouds to watch over us from heaven, Titia Luisa said. And Pai and Rafael went off to America, leaving me with Titia Luisa and Tio Paulo. I still felt that flash of anger when I thought of their leaving without me. I ran my fingers through Cavalo's mane. I'm going now, Mamae. Pai has begun to race horses at a farm in America, and there's room for me at last. Pai and Rafael have a house! "Goodbye, blue house." The sound of my voice was loud in my ears. "Goodbye, dear Mamae." Tio Paulo was outside in the truck now, blasting the horn for me. "Pay no attention to him," I whispered to Cavalo. Cavalo felt the pressure of my knees and my hands pulling gently on his mane, and turned. We crossed the muddy rio, my feet raised away from the splashes of water, and climbed the slippery rocks, Cavalo's heels clanking against the stone. In the distance, between his yelling and the horn blaring, Tio Paulo sounded desperate. Suddenly I was feeling that desperation, too. We had to go all the way to Sao Paulo to catch the plane. But I was determined. Five minutes, no more. "Hurry," I told Cavalo. Up ahead was the curved white fence that surrounded the lemon grove. The overhanging branches were old and gnarled, the leaves a little dusty, and the lemons still green. Pai, my father, had held me up the day he'd left. His hair was dark, his teeth straight and white. "Pick a lemon for me, Lidie. I'll take it to America." I'd reached up and up and pulled at the largest lemon I could find. "When I send for you, you'll bring me another," he'd said. What else was in that memory? Their suitcases on the porch steps, and I was sobbing, begging, "Take me, take me." He'd scooped me up, my face crushed against his shirt, and his voice was choked. "This is the worst of all of it," he'd said. In back of him, Luisa was crying, and Tio banged his fist against the porch post. But that was the last time I cried. After they left, I promised myself I'd never shed one more tear. Not for anyone. From the Trade Paperback edition. Excerpted from Wild Girl by Patricia Reilly Giff All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.