Spud & Charli

by Samantha Wheeler

Does your imagination ever run wild Charli is at riding camp, where her dream is about to come true - she will finally learn to ride a real, live horse. But when show-off Mikaela picks the horse Charli wants, her heart bungees to her toes. Instead of the beautiful palomino Razz, Charli's stuck riding the massive retired racehorse Spud. And what about the bats that fill the night sky Don't bats spread deadly diseases Riding camp isn't turning out the way Charli planned, especially when she finds herself in the middle of a life-threatening disaster. An action-packed adventure about horses, bats and getting carried away by your imagination.

Genres: Childrens

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Bec · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book through Goodreads Giveaways. :)

What a lovely book for children/middle-grade readers or anyone who loves horse books. I loved the character Charli, she reminded me a little of myself when I first started to ride horses. The book moves at just the right pace, although at times I would have liked a little bit more about the characters. I read it in one sitting as it is a quick read for someone like me. It's also captivating and I very much enjoyed this book. I recommend it for lovers of horse fiction and for the children/middle grade reading level. Thank you Samantha Wheeler for writing this book. It's nice to have a horse book that actually has some decent information in it.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book shows bravery and confidence, it teaches to don't give up on everything easily if you haven't gotten a try.

[Melina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charli is thrilled to be attending a real-life riding camp where she’ll learn everything she needs to know about riding horses. But when she allows her fears about bats and the Hendra virus to get the better of her, things don’t quite go as planned.

I really enjoyed Samantha Wheeler’s first book, Smooch and Rose when I read it last year, so I was really looking forward to reading this one. Sadly, I don’t think it was as good as Smooch and Rose. Where Smooch and Rose felt multi-layered and had a real heart to it (I actually cried when I read it), Spud and Charli felt a little too one-noted, and didn’t reach me in quite the same way.

There’s a couple of reasons this might be the case – to start with, I’m not as invested in horses as I am in koalas – I’m just not a big horse person, while I live in an area where there’s recently been mass clearing of koala habitat. As an adult, I also had a pretty good idea of what the adults had done/were doing, so I didn’t have the same sense of dread that a younger reader might have. A younger reader who is interested in horses, might be able to move around those issues.

My main issue though, was the use of the ‘child over-reacts and goes too far because adults don’t give them information’ trope. It’s not the over-reacting that bugs me, so much as the ‘going too far’ – in this case, it felt like Charli was written into a position which she really couldn’t come out of. And it led to a conclusion which left me dissatisfied as a reader.

There’s information on the Hendra virus and bats and horses at the end of the book which is well worth reading – I like the little snippets which serve to build on knowledge and understanding of the reader or which act as a launching pad into further reading.

I really want to read more from Samantha Wheeler, but I really hope her next book has as much heart as Smooch and Rose. Spud and Charli is a nice little book which would appeal to younger readers, but I think the author has more powerful books to write.

Originally reviewed at Subversive Reader

[Ronni · Rating 2 out of 5]

This should have been called Charli and the bats eith hendra virus, because she freaks out about ut through most of the story. I was disappointed.