Heather and the Highland Pony

by Maggie Felsch, Cory Walker (Illustrator)

Heather’s mum quickly pressed a heavy cloth bag into her daughter’s arms. “Heather, if we’ve not arrived at the waterwheel by sunrise, you should leave town. Look after your brother and take care of this bundle. It will help you. You need to—”

But Heather’s mum couldn’t finish her sentence. A soldier called her name loudly.

Armed with sheer determination and a cloth bag of mysterious items, Heather and her young brother set off on a curious journey to find the reason for their parents’ disappearance. As they travel across the Highlands and isles of Scotland, they discover new friends and solve old mysteries.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Childrens, Fiction

184 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2023

Reviews

[Megan Giompalo]

I read this with my daughter for homeschool! Such a sweet and encouraging story with good morals and lessons!

[Victoria]

I am quite impressed with the Good and the Beautiful literature. This was beautifully written, and I appreciated the lessons of honesty and perseverance. It was also good exposure to geography, Scottish culture and history, survival (both physically and emotionally), as well as learning about the condition of dwarfism.

[Ashley]

Read with Drew for school. Loved the sibling relationship.

[Courtney Spivey]

Amazing read with my daughter. Love the back and forth between parent and student. Such a sweet story and makes you anticipate how it will come to a resolution.
I’ll recommend this to other parents for read—alongs

[Amber]

This was a really sweet part of our homeschool language arts curriculum. I love how the books are designed to be passed back and forth between the parent and child. More importantly, the storyline was engaging, and my daughter always begged for one more chapter. I loved how the themes revolved around integrity, honesty, and the siblings didn't fight or call each other names (without making the relationship cheesy or unrealistic).

[Ana Robinson]

I’m a very smart woman, but I cried reading this with my child! (😂) The story is very sweet, with the right amount of suspense and inspiring a strong sibling relationship.

Many times we finished a chapter and my daughter would say: PLEASE, can we read more?! It’s definitely our favorite from the #tgtb stories. 🤍

[Cat Denmark]

We read this as part of my 3rd grade son’s L.A. curriculum. He really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the brother and sister relationship as well as their adventure. It had meaningful messages about honesty throughout as well as respecting people’s differences and even appreciating the way God made you.

[Gloria]

I am so loving these Good and the Beautiful stories with characters of great strength and courage and good choices.

[Chloe (Always Booked)]

We read this as a part of my daughters 3rd grade language arts curriculum. Its a fun one for us to read together-- she reads the kids section and I read the adult section. It's about a girl named Heather and her brother Archie trying to go on a journey with their pony, Bonnie to try to rescue their parents. Heather has dwarfism and I loved the discussion around that. It's definitely cheesy and in your face, but good for a middle grade audience. I loved the emphasis on family. The beginning was confusing-- nobody understood why the parents got arrested and where they were.

[Aisley Faust]

I loved this adventurous story about two siblings that were very courageous. They had an awesome adventure filled with suspense but they continued to remain honest, kind, and true both ton one another and to others they met along the way. They made lots of friends as they had faith in themselves, their family, and of course each other! I really loved this story and would read it again in a heartbeat!

[Elizabeth Reid]

This is an uplifting and clean book that my 3rd grader greatly enjoyed reading with me. I, however, am getting tired of the constant serial lists found in the G&B library books. As in, it appears as though all the G&B authors have been told to fill their books with as many lists as possible to teach children about the Oxford comma. Reading these lists often gets monotonous.

[Olivia Dlugiewicz]

I really like this book me and my mom read it and I liked how it ended I liked it so much that we read two chapters a day it was a fun book and I liked it because there was the two children and they helped each other and when Heather was about to turn back she realized that she didn’t want to go back.

[Mary West]

This is such a wonderful book. It's a parent and child read together book, part of our curriculum, and I so appreciate that these are books with an amazing story line and wholesome lessons. We loved the story of Heather and Archie and the suspense. I cried at the end, I thought it was so touching. I won't spoil anything, but this was great and my son and I both loved it.

[Serene In Wonderland]

This was a book alongside the Good and the Beautiful Language Arts curriculum that you read along with the child. I loved it! MC with dwarfism and many beautiful values running through. Also a wonderful opportunity to make your child giggle with your attempts at a Scottish accent.

CONTENT:
No issues that I remember. If there was faith in this one, I believe it was very Muslim-compatible.

[Dena]

My 9 year old and I read this as a part of The Good and the Beautiful Level 3 Language Arts. This was a cute story about a Scottish girl, Heather, and her little brother, Archie, making a journey across the Scottish Highlands to help her parents. There were many positive messages and even though my 9 year old won't admit it, we both enjoyed it!

[Mel Harper]

I didn’t realize these books were on Goodreads. I read this with Ivy and while I love the format (parent pages and kid pages with phonics learning at the beginning of every chapter), this was probably our least favorite of the bunch. It was slower than some of the others but the message was good.

[Lara Parker]

This was a sweet book to read aloud with my Henry for school.

[Jenna Davis]

5 stars per my 8 yo son.

[Bethany]

We (my son and I) read this for homeschool. My son’s review is below.

It was a pretty good adventure! I was not expecting it to have so many lessons. It had both good lessons and action!

[Camden Kerr]

The only reason I rated it this high was because I acted it all out for my brother and got a lot of laughs. Other than that it was a little boring.

[Carrie]

T loved this book. It was a fun read aloud for his language arts curriculum.

[Bethany]

Read-aloud with R, April-May '25

It's good. I think the beginning was a little rushed which left me a little confused. But overall sweet story, my 8 year-old enjoyed it.

[Danielle Jackson]

I read this with Caden. We both enjoyed it. Great morals.

Entertainment value: 4
Moral value: 5
Educational value: 4
Literary value: 4

[Jenna]

Claiming credit for reading this alongside Asher in Language Arts schoolwork 🤪

[Jessica Wright]

Wholesome homeschool read with Mason

[Alison Wright]

This was such a good story! Read with Eleni. So many good messages and made you wanting to keep reading!

[Krystal]

Read with my nine year old and this is his rating 😊

[Laura]

My absolute favorite read of the 3rd grade books. Such a cute and impactful story!!

[Logan Thorpe]

Haggis is so funny!🤣 I kinda wish I had him!

[Emily]

2025: I read this with my son for school. It’s a book that has short, one-page grammar and phonics lessons before each chapter, then is broken into sections for the students and parent/teacher to read. My son followed along with the story well and was interested in it the whole way. He was excited to hear the end of the story, and it sparked in him an interest in Scotland. He was excited when I told him that he had lots of ancestors from Scotland and wanted to learn more about them because of this book. The book is about a girl named Heather who lives in Scotland. Her parents get accused of a crime, and she and her brother leave in the night to go on a journey set by her mother to the Scottish Highlands, solving mysteries along the way.