Review of Dinky: The Nurse Mare's Foal

Every so often, I come across a book that strongly pulls at me to read; Dinky was one of these. It is not an easy task for a writer to keep her reader’s interest when the story is written in first person. Ms. Bishop’s script with Dinky as the narrator of his story is exceptional. I loved this story – it is educational, emotionally engaging, insightfully written and so very rich in detail.

A real-life foal, the author brought Dinky vividly to life for me, from page one. Ms. Bishop’s interpretations of Dinky’s thoughts during the initial months of his life were so heart-wrenching to read yet, from the beginning, I found myself captivated by Dinky’s spirit. Despite the incessant cruelty done to Dinky by humans – he was always famished, underfed, ignored and frightened – there is resilience in his nature that commanded my respect. After reading the synopsis, I expected to be angry, to cry when Dinky, a ‘junk foal,’ told his story of being taken from his mother, a mare caught up in man’s cruel practice of breeding her only for milk to nourish a high-dollar mare’s foal. It was almost unbearable, reading of the cruelty done to Dinky during his first few months of life – the overwhelming fear for his fate: being sold to a meat market or to tanners, or being adopted. In the words of Dinky: “I wasn’t prepared to believe in the possibility of good things.” http://doreencox.blogspot.com/2013/10/dinky-nurse-mares-foal-my-5-star-review.html?spref=tw