I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade
- Book Review,
by Diane Lee Wilson
From Publishers Weekly
PW's starred review said, "Horse lovers or not, readers will be riveted" by Wilson's debut novel featuring a girl equestrian living in 14th-century Mongolia. Ages 10-up. (Sept.) r Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 6-10AIn 14th-century China, an elderly woman tells her granddaughter about her early life on the Mongol steppes, beginning with the day a horse crushed her tiny foot, crippling the young Oyuna. According to her nomadic clan's religious beliefs, this incident brought bad luck to her and her family. Thereafter, she views any misfortune visited upon her family as her fault, even her mother's accidental death. Her one joy is her new white horse. When the mare is commandeered by Kublai Khan's forces, Oyuna dresses as a boy in order to remain with her beloved companion. When the soldiers discover her secret, they are anxious to get rid of her and quickly send her off alone to complete a mission for an injured arrow rider for the Khan. After an arduous trek, she reaches the Khan's palace where she is instrumental in halting a plague that is killing off the ruler's herd of white horses and meets the man whom she will marry. In the words of her own shamaness grandmother, she has learned to make her own luck. This unique coming-of-age story is steeped in the rituals and superstitions of the period and punctuated with graphic images of the harsh terrain and living conditions on the barren steppes, the treacherous mountains, and the gobi. The character of Oyuna, though a sympathetic one, seems drawn with a kind of detachment that makes it difficult to identify closely with her. Nevertheless, her story is an exciting one that will reward diligent, proficient readers.APeggy Morgan, The Library Network, Southgate, MICopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The New York Times Book Review, Elizabeth Devereaux
An ambitious and fast-moving plot insistently tugs the reader away from the book's flaws.
From Booklist
Gr. 6^-10. In China in 1339, a young girl huddles with her Mongolian grandmother, Oyuna, in a stable, waiting with a mare who is about to foal. Oyuna tells her life story to her granddaughter, starting with the injury that left her lame after her first childhood encounter with a horse. It is a fantastical tale: Oyuna's own grandmother, a shamaness, offers her hope of better luck after the death of Oyuna's mother. With a horse that speaks words she can hear (sometimes) and a remarkable tiger cat, Oyuna rides, first hiding both her lameness and her gender, to deliver to the great court of Kublai Khan a package entrusted to her by mistake. The telling of her many adventures, as well as her dreams of Kublai's fields of milk-white horses near his court, occasionally slows the first-person narrative. But there are portents and amulets, hairbreadth rescues, and Oyuna's dream of returning to her father and clan to return their good luck to them--these factors will hold readers. Full of period detail, with a glossary of Mongolian words used in the text, the tale will appeal to those who love historical fantasy or horse stories. GraceAnne A. DeCandido
From Kirkus Reviews
``Bad luck,'' plagues 12-year-old Oyuna and her family. Oyuna seems fated to live with the curse of her lame foot, crushed by a black mare, for the rest of her life. But the elderly Oyuna relates the plodding story to her granddaughter of how she changed her destiny in in 14th-century Mongolia. During the era of Kublai Khan, Oyuna's journey to self-confidence begins when she finds that she is able to communicate with a special white mare. When soldiers come to take the mare, Oyuna disguises herself as a boy to join Khan's army so she can be with the horse. Her adventures border on the absurd, e.g., she first stands up to Khan and then bonds with him. While there are some brave moments and dramatic scenes, readers will lose patience with the limping narrative and obvious moral. (glossary) (Fiction. 11-13) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
"[This] first novel makes the Disney movie Mulan look sluggish...Ambitious and fast-moving."
"No ordinary horse story...Horse lovers or not, readers will be riveted."
Book Description
Born on the Mongolian steppes during the reign of Kublai Khan, Oyuna's future seems decided when, as an infant, her foot is crushed by a horse. Her clan believes she has been cursed by bad luck, and she is confined to her family's tent to cook and sew. But Oyuna dreams of bringing honor and good luck to her family. Disguised as a boy and with only her beloved old mare and heroic cat for company, she sets off on a journey--a journey that will change her luck forever.In her debut novel, talented new author Diane Lee Wilson--chosen as one of Publishers Weekly's Flying Starts for 1998--spins an inspired tale of courage, faith, and determination. 00-01 Young Hoosier Book Award Masterlist (Grds 6-8) and 01 AZ Young Reader Award Masterlist (Teen Bks cat.)
Card catalog description
In early fourteenth-century China, Oyuna tells her granddaughter of her girlhood in Mongolia and how love for her horse enabled her to win an important race and bring good luck to her family.
About the Author
Diane Lee Wilson lives with her family in San Diego, CA. I Rode a Horse of Mild White Jade is her first book for children.
Excerpted from I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade by Diane Lee Wilson. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
Outside Hangchou, China-a.d. 1339"Grandmother! You came!""Of course I came.""But it's so far, and with your leg being-""Never you mind what can't be changed. How is she?""I don't know. Not well, I think. She's just been circling all day.""Circling." The wrinkled face nodded. Papery eyelids drooped, then lifted on dove gray eyes flecked with gold. "That is good. Circling brings luck. Circling . . . completes the journey."Head bobbing, the heavily robed old woman lifted the latch and limped into the stable's shadows. She pulled the shivering girl into the sweet-smelling grass piled in the corner. Together they silently marveled at the swollen sides of the white mare who stood, ears pricked, staring expectantly into the night."See?" A knobby finger was thrust from beneath the fraying edge of the deep blue silk robe. "She knows to wait for the right time. We will wait with her." Opening her robe and pulling the young girl within its warmth, the old woman continued, "Your mother tells me you have many questions-about what happened in the past." A sigh, like a weak breeze sifting through dried leaves, floated into the darkness. "That was long ago, a different time, a different land even. But perhaps, before the night is through . . ."The white ears of the mare flickered forward and back, trying to catch the low tones drifting through her stall. But the woman whispered her story only for her granddaughter, whose small body curled beneath her arm. It was the ninth day of the ninth month; the moon rose full. The time had come.The Black MareI don't remember on which day it happened. I do remember the earth warm against my back, the dirt soft beneath my fingernails as I cried out. So it must have been June, or maybe July, for the months of summer are but fleeting visitors in Mongolia.Before the hands came, pulling me up, before the voice joined mine, wailing, in that brief moment of chaos where all becomes calm, there was the mare. As I lay upon my back, a helpless, whining toddler, she lowered her head to nuzzle me. Like the falling of night her great dark head pushed away the pale sky, for she was all I could see. Warm gusts from her giant nostrils blew across my face. Silky black hide, stretched over bony sun and shadow, framed liquid eyes. I stared into their depths. Like black water on a moonless night, they hid what lay beneath, yet drew me in, breathless. I think that in that moment I did hold my breath, stopped crying.Then the mare lifted her hoof, passing it over my head, and moved on. She picked her way daintily now, as if fearful of crushing a flower. But there it was already-my crushed foot.With the rushing pain came the blood; with the blood, the screams. I remember my mother hurriedly wrapping my foot in a silk sash of pale blue-the color of good luck. The blood seeped through anyway, warm and wet, and I could smell it. It is the same smell as when a baby goat plunges into your hands from its mother's womb. The smell of birth.This was my birth into the realm of the horse.
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