Cloud Magic

Sky Horses

by Linda Chapman

Erin had always believed in magic, but she never believed she had powers of her own! Until one day Erin looks up into the clouds and sees a herd of magic horses! Erin discovers that she is a weather weaver with special powers, and the sky horses need her help. Tor the majestic sky stallion has been trapped on Earth by a dark spirit and only Erin and her new friends can save him. Will her new powers be strong enough to return Tor to his kingdom in the clouds?

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Childrens, Middle Grade, Horses

192 pages, Paperback

First published August 6, 2009

About the author

Linda Chapman was born in Liverpool in 1969. She had many different jobs before becoming a full-time writer in 1999 including working as a theatre stage manager, a dog trainer, a bookseller, a nanny, a teacher and a research assistant. She has written over 300 books for children, some under her own name, others under different names and she often collaborates with other authors. She is currently writing books with Julie Sykes and they are co-authors on the NYT bestselling Unicorn Academy series as well as Mermaid Academy, Forever Homes and Pocket Unicorns. Linda lives in Leicestershire with her husband, three children, two horses and three dogs. She has written many different series including: My Secret Unicorn, Star Friends, Best Friends Bakery, Stardust, Skating School and, most recently, Magic Keepers and Moonlight Riders.

Reviews

[Thistle · Rating 3 out of 5]

With a title like 'Sky Horses' and a horse on the cover, I understandably thought this book would be about horses. I thought it would be a "talking animal" book, with some kind of element of magic. What it really was was a book about a young girl who loves horses. And magic. (Though I always link to the Amazon page whenever possible, this time I didn't get it from Amazon, so I hadn't seen the blurb there first.)

The book opened well enough. Chapter one was about a group of "sky horses" talking about sky horse things. Then chapter two took a left turn. Spoiler: Clouds are actually horses! We just can't see the horses, only people with a hag stone (a stone with a natural hole in it) can see the clouds as horses. The main character, Erin, had a hag stone, looked up into the sky through it, and saw the horses. As she was a young girl who loved horses, no one believed her when she told people that clouds are really horses.

Chapter one was basically the last we heard of the horses. The rest of the book (at least the 60% I read) was about Erin and her special powers. Turns out she was not just human, she was a "Stardust Sprite". See, all humans have "stardust" in them, it's what lets us imagine things. When one human has a lot more stardust than everyone else, it means they have magical powers and an ability to turn into a Stardust Sprite. How does one turn into one of those? By repeating "I believe in Stardust!" three times. As far as I could tell, the only difference between a Stardust Sprite and a human was that the sprites can fly and their clothing turns into a dress.

The plot? One of the sky horses was stolen by an evil sprite, so the Stardust Sprites had to go save it. Yawn.

The writing was good (especially after the last book I read), but I just too far from the target audience. When I was a preteen, I likely would have LOVED the book. Erin was a book-loving, horse-crazy basically social outcast (who then got ~magical~ friends once she got her Starlight Sprite powers, and boy did they show all those people who were mean to her!). Any young girl who enjoys reading or loves horses would like eat this book series up, but for adult me, the magical powers both of the characters and the whole worldbuilding came off as ridiculous.

Since I read more than half, I can count this towards my 50 book goal. It was a short book and a fast read, I could have finished it in another half-hour or so, but I had no interest in the story and wasn't enjoying it, so figured I'd move on.

[Lissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

So this is a sequel series to the Stardust books! Featuring cameos from Allegra and Xanthe. You could read this without first reading the Stardust books but I would recommend reading those first.

This was actually set up pretty well in Lucy’s Magic Journal (Stardust #8.5) which introduced Chloe, Xanthe’s godmother who has recently become a Stardust spirit. Chloe is a main character in this! Honestly, this makes me like that book a bit more - it’s a bit more than a recap, and this means there is 2 major things that come from that one!

I liked this book a lot and am excited to read more of this series!

I also feel like this might have been longer too? Not sure but it felt like there was more happening here.

The illustrations have gotten a bit more complicated too! I like them. I’m not sure if it’s the same illustrator or not? Could be, I’d have to check.

Either way, I do like how Linda Chapman has illustrations throughout all her books (at least all the ones I’ve read).

What’s also really interested is it seems like all 4 books in this series came out on the same day! Which is unusual and really interesting.

[Ellie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wish I thought of writing a review for this back when I first read it as I am very far from the target audience now.

But I enjoyed this book nevertheless I've been in a reading slump and have been for awhile now so something short and simple is what I needed. There are things that could have been done better and more stakes but this is a book about a child for children so we forgive it.