About the author
Robert Olmstead is an emeritus professor in the English Department at Ohio Wesleyan University. He has written eight books, of which one, Coal Black Horse, has equine content. Coal Black Horse won the Heartland Prize for Fiction and the Ohioana Award.
Finding the book
Easy to find.
Links and sources
Robert Olmstead on Wikipedia
Bibliography (horse books only)
Coal Black Horse
Algonquin, New York, 2007, 218 pp
Algonquin, New York, 2008, pb
Robey Childs’ mother has a premonition about her husband, who is fighting in the Civil War. She asks Robey to find his father on the battlefield and bring him home. Fourteen-year-old Robey
thinks it’s a great adventure, but when his horse falters on the way, he realises he’s up against far more than he thinks. A blacksmith lends him a coal black horse. When they are separated, Robey is lost, but together he and the horse move as one. It is a traumatic journey.
