Magical Horses – A Spellbinding Ride Through Classic Tales of Wonder

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 out of print but 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