About the author
Author Katherine Roberts (born 1962) was born in the South West of England, and educated at the University of Bath where she took a first in Mathematics: useful, she says, for understanding royalty statements. She worked with racehorses for ten years, and still loves riding, though at home she rides a bicycle: considerably cheaper to feed. Her first book was Song Quest (1999), which won the first Branford Boase Award for an outstanding first novel for children. Her work since then has mostly been fantasy. It’s true to say that a story from the point of view of a horse is a fantasy; the idea of a horse thinking as does a human is certainly fantastic. I Am the Great Horse (2006) is the story of Bucephalas, Alexander the Great’s war horse, told by the horse himself. This element of fantasy makes more sense when you consider that some of her favourite childhood books were the Silver Brumby stories of Elyne Mitchell, in which horses talk, and describe their own adventures.
Finding the books
All easy to find: Spellfall and I Am the Great Horse are now available in ebook format. Magical Horses is out of print but easy to find secondhand.
Links and sources
Katherine Roberts’ website
An interview with Katherine Roberts on Wordpool (no longer extant)
Bibliography (pony books only)
Spellfall
Chicken House, 2000, 239 pp.
Scholastic, New York, 2000, 250 pp.
Not massively horsey, but it is an excellent story, and it does have a unicorn. Natalie finds that she has strange powers in this story of two worlds. The kidnapper’s son Merlin needs to decide where his loyalties lie. Can they save the enchanted realm of Earthaven?
I Am The Great Horse
Chicken House, New York, 2006, 401 pp.
Chicken House, 2007, 544 pp.
Republished by the author in two parts in 2014 as ebooks
This is the story of Alexander the Great’s war horse, Bucephalas, told by the horse himself. It’s also the story of his stable girl, Charm. A unique perspective on Alexander’s campaigns.
Magical Horses – a Spellbinding Ride Through Classic Tales of Wonder
Carlton, London, 2009, 25 pp. Illus Patricia Moffett
Magic of the Unicorn
Horses of the Sun
Enbarr the Fairy Horse
The Wind Horse of Mongolia
Pegasus and the Chimera
The Rainbow Horses of Surya
Golden Gringolet and the Green Knight
