A Horse Called Dragon

Dragon Horse #1

by Lynn Hall, Joseph Cellini (Illustrator)

Also published under the title, A Horse Called Dragon.

Genres: Horses, Animals, Fiction, Middle Grade, Childrens, Young Adult

Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Lynn Hall was the author of over fifty novels for juvenile and young adult readers, as well as over two dozen novels for younger readers. Her books focus on coming-of-age stories featuring dogs and horses.

Reviews

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

We follow a wild horse from its birth to leading its own herd to becoming a pillar (in the phallic sense) in the creation of a new horse breed called Pony of the Americas in the 1950s.

This historical fiction is based on an actual horse named Dragon POA 103 (his registration number in the Pony of America Club). It's a fairly harrowing nature docudrama with a surprising amount of violence and death. So maybe don't read it to a My Little Pony fan.

[Johnna Cee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sheesh I read a lot of horsebooks when I was little....

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

What was the point of this book? Apparently the moral is "Just give up." What a great thing to teach! Pass the ketamine, please.



Nice cover, though.

This book is supposedly based on the life of a real wild stallion, Dragon #103, used as a foundation sire for the Pony of the Americas breed. (An awesome breed, may I add.) Thought to be foaled in 1946, he was found starving in Mexico by an American lawyer and horse breeder Leslie Boomhower. This is the best photo of Dragon I could find on the Internet:



The later book in the series Lynn Hall wrote about Dragon, New Day for Dragon is the best and highly recommended. You do not have to read this book in order to understand what's going on in New Day for Dragon.

[Mirrani · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I liked about this story was that it went beyond being another book about a wild stallion. It combines the history of one new breed of horse with the retelling of one horse's life. That retelling is done not strictly from the horse's point of view and not strictly from the human's point of view, but through a combination of both. As a reader, you are an outsider seeing life through a horse's eyes and mind. Dragon's actions are explained away from his way of thinking, the way he would see it if words could be put to the instinct, without putting words into the horse's mouth or giving false sense of reality. It is because of this blending that I enjoyed this book which was a quick read not only because it is short, but because I couldn't put it down.

[Sariah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this with my daughter at bedtime for the last few weeks and it was long enough I decided to include it here. It was one of my brother's old books written in 1971 that happened to be sitting on my shelf and my horse-loving daughter saw it and wanted to read it of course. It's kind of a weird book written in an overly descriptive way for a juvenile book with a lot of big words. The story wasn't very appealing either. But the historical aspect of Dragon and what's come of his story was rather interesting.

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

My childhood copy of A Horse Called Dragon showed all the wear and tear of a favorite; I probably read it ten times in 5th grade. Not a cozy wish-fulfillment horse story like my other childhood faves, but instead brings to life the fearful journey of a wild pony captured and transported away from the only life he's known.

[Karissa Talks Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book detailing the life of a mustang named Dragon, who went on to sire many POAs after being captured. The writing was good and the story was good, albeit a bit sad.

[Lizzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a cute story. I proofread it for the younger girls and ended up enjoying it more than I thought I would.

[Niffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read many Lynn Hall books when I was young, including this one, and remember loving them all. Recently I felt the need for some nostalgia reads and so I looked up this book and found I could get it through my library's interlibrary loan service.

I'm sure my 11 year old self took a bit longer to read this, but it took me only a few hours to revisit this childhood memory. It reinforced my memory of Lynn Hall as an amazing storyteller, although the modern me recognized much of the stylized drama of the story as purposely there to pull at the heartstrings of a young reader rather than appeal to an older one.

The modern me also recognized much of the information that Lynn Hall used in her story as a simplistic and somewhat outdated view of mustang family dynamics. I follow a number of rescues and organizations that work with horses (both domestic and wild) and the understanding of their behavior has grown since I was young. Still the overall story was solid.

My 4 star rating comes from my memory of reading the book many, many years ago, but I don't feel any need to change it. It's still a great story.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

read it as a child, don't remember it.