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Big Guy: A School Horse Story
For fans of Black Beauty and A Horse Named Sky, here's a new middle grade novel by award-winning author and former horse trainer Celia Ryker with illustrations by Kathy Connell. Big Guy is about a show horse who has big changes to face, and who learns that friendships can last beyond the time you share together.
Big Guy is a big horse dealing with big changes. His looks and talent have helped him win blue ribbons at the biggest horse shows in the country. But when old age and injury make him unfit for winning prizes, his owner retires him to a position as a school horse, giving riding lessons to children. At the school horse barn, Big Guy meets Shorty, Kaiser, Slippy and many other horses who teach him about running in wide open fields and being part of a herd. Uplifting, funny, and sweet, Big Guy is a simple story told from the horse's point of view that reads like a night under the stars, or an afternoon racing to a hay field.
Big Guy is a big horse dealing with big changes. His looks and talent have helped him win blue ribbons at the biggest horse shows in the country. But when old age and injury make him unfit for winning prizes, his owner retires him to a position as a school horse, giving riding lessons to children. At the school horse barn, Big Guy meets Shorty, Kaiser, Slippy and many other horses who teach him about running in wide open fields and being part of a herd. Uplifting, funny, and sweet, Big Guy is a simple story told from the horse's point of view that reads like a night under the stars, or an afternoon racing to a hay field.
184 pages, Paperback
Published June 18, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 5, 2024
I received this book to review. It is a cute book told through the eyes of a horse. If you like horses you will really enjoy this book. The adventures the horses get themselves into will show you just how intelligent animals can be.
July 31, 2026
Celia Ryker’s Big Guy is a warm, lively novel told from the perspective of Full Time, a successful show horse whose rider calls him Big Guy. When arthritis ends his competitive career, he’s moved from a spacious stall and polished show routine into a barn full of lesson horses. At first, Big Guy sees the change as a humiliating demotion. He misses the ribbons, the careful grooming, and Nancy, the girl who rode and loved him for years. His new life gradually opens into something larger, though, as he learns the rhythms of pasture life, meets a memorable herd, and discovers what it means to belong.
Big Guy’s voice is the book’s greatest strength. He’s proud, observant, funny, and sometimes wonderfully vain. His misunderstandings of human objects and customs, including balloons, swimming pools, and zoos, create gentle comedy without making him seem foolish. The other horses are just as distinctive. Sweet Shorty steadies the group, cranky Kaiser hides vulnerability behind bluster, Brownie offers hard-earned wisdom, and Slippy treats every fence as a personal challenge. Their conversations give the barn the feeling of a bustling neighborhood where everyone knows everyone else’s habits, history, and weak spots.
The story also has more emotional weight than its playful premise might suggest. Big Guy must cope with aging, physical pain, wounded pride, separation, and the fear of becoming unwanted. His early description of school horses as “old leather halters whose brass buckles and rings are worn and dull” captures the sadness shared by animals whose earlier careers and owners are gone. Ryker doesn’t rush Big Guy through these feelings. He makes mistakes, insults his new companions, worries about how others see him, and slowly earns his place in the herd through loyalty and courage.
The horse-centered viewpoint also gives the book an appealing way to explore care and responsibility. Readers see how confusing even well-intended human decisions can feel to an animal that doesn’t understand the full conversation. At the same time, the barn is filled with people who adjust workloads, tend injuries, sit through the night with a sick horse, and try to find safe homes for animals who can no longer work. The riding and stable details feel natural rather than pasted in, and the glossary makes the terminology accessible. Ryker’s note that the horses were based on animals she knew adds another layer of affection to the story.
By the end, Big Guy has become a thoughtful story about identity, usefulness, friendship, and the many forms a good life can take. Big Guy doesn’t simply trade one career for another. He learns to see himself and the horses around him more clearly. His final realization, “We’re all real horses,” is simple, but it lands because the whole book has built toward it. This would be an inviting read for young horse lovers, but its compassion for aging animals and its understanding of pride, change, and community give it plenty to offer adult readers too.
Big Guy’s voice is the book’s greatest strength. He’s proud, observant, funny, and sometimes wonderfully vain. His misunderstandings of human objects and customs, including balloons, swimming pools, and zoos, create gentle comedy without making him seem foolish. The other horses are just as distinctive. Sweet Shorty steadies the group, cranky Kaiser hides vulnerability behind bluster, Brownie offers hard-earned wisdom, and Slippy treats every fence as a personal challenge. Their conversations give the barn the feeling of a bustling neighborhood where everyone knows everyone else’s habits, history, and weak spots.
The story also has more emotional weight than its playful premise might suggest. Big Guy must cope with aging, physical pain, wounded pride, separation, and the fear of becoming unwanted. His early description of school horses as “old leather halters whose brass buckles and rings are worn and dull” captures the sadness shared by animals whose earlier careers and owners are gone. Ryker doesn’t rush Big Guy through these feelings. He makes mistakes, insults his new companions, worries about how others see him, and slowly earns his place in the herd through loyalty and courage.
The horse-centered viewpoint also gives the book an appealing way to explore care and responsibility. Readers see how confusing even well-intended human decisions can feel to an animal that doesn’t understand the full conversation. At the same time, the barn is filled with people who adjust workloads, tend injuries, sit through the night with a sick horse, and try to find safe homes for animals who can no longer work. The riding and stable details feel natural rather than pasted in, and the glossary makes the terminology accessible. Ryker’s note that the horses were based on animals she knew adds another layer of affection to the story.
By the end, Big Guy has become a thoughtful story about identity, usefulness, friendship, and the many forms a good life can take. Big Guy doesn’t simply trade one career for another. He learns to see himself and the horses around him more clearly. His final realization, “We’re all real horses,” is simple, but it lands because the whole book has built toward it. This would be an inviting read for young horse lovers, but its compassion for aging animals and its understanding of pride, change, and community give it plenty to offer adult readers too.
December 18, 2024
This is a fun middle grade book about a show horse, stable name "Big Guy," a Thoroughbred who is now suffering from arthritis and is too old to keep showing with "his person." She arranges for him to become a school horse, used for riding and jumping lessons. He has to adjust to his new situation being let out in a field instead of always in a stall, and new stallmates, and putting up with little kids and amateur riders. Bug Guy tells his story from his point of view (like the classic Black Beauty), with several flashback sequences as he recalls his days as a foal and his showjumping days. The other horses are all interesting characters, of different breeds, ages, and they share their past experiences too, and have fun quirks to their personalities--from Kaiser, the former ranch horse who kicks saddles off the wall at night, just for fun, to Slippy the circus horse who breaks the fence and leads the herd on adventures. Big Guy starts out a loner and makes friends as he goes, enjoying becoming part of a herd family. It's a sweet story for horse lovers, with realistic equine behavior (other than the fantasy element of them all talking to each other, of course). Tons of horse facts and info about riding and barn life, and the reader is swept along into believing the horses know the human vocabulary about most things. Nice realistic black and white spot illustrations throughout are perfect. The author's note reveals that the characters are all based on real horses from her experiences, and I enjoyed that--there's nothing more disappointing than a horse book that doesn't get the horses right.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews