I learned of the book War Horse when I saw the preview for the upcoming movie. I thought it looked like a good story. I thought right. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
It is a story of a farm horse named Joey from Devon,England who gets sold to the calvary during WWI and shipped to France. He bravely serves on both the English and German sides, weathering the harshest of circumstances. Ending up in No Man's Land, he is approached by both an Englishman and a German, and after a very touching scene, his fate is decided by the toss of a coin. The ending almost made me cry. Whether it was a happy or sad cry; I'll never tell.
The only downside for me was that when Michael Morpurgo referenced the horses sleeping, he was always talking about them laying down. Horses rarely lay down to sleep, or anything else for that matter. He also mentioned Joey licking someone's face (or at least thinking about it). Growing up on 40 acres and raising horses causes me to beg the question, "How much research did he spend on horses before he wrote this book?" Overall, I would give this book an 8 out of 10. I can hardly wait to see the movie to come out to see how they adapted it to film.
Joanna
