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Overview
When fifteen-year-old Rachel is forced to move to Boston in 1872, she is furious. She is also lonely, for her beloved horse, Peaches, has been sold. But Rachel soon finds a horse that needs her, and needs her desperately: The Governor's Girl, a famous firehorse, has been badly burned. Rachel gets permission to care for the Girl in a stable behind her house.
As she cares for the injured horse,Rachel dreams about becoming a veterinarian. But her father, a newspaperman, has very definite ideas about where women belong: only in the home. Father also has definite ideas about Boston's inadequate firefighting equipment, as an outbreak of suspicious fires erupts. To make things worse, horses everywhere begin falling ill — and it is horses that power the city's fire engines. Another spark might send the whole city up in flames.
With cinematic vividness, Diane Lee Wilson brings the very real Great Boston Fire to life in this exciting and inspiring story of a strong-minded girl determined to decide her own future.
Synopsis
When fifteen-year-old Rachel is forced to move to Boston in 1872, she is furious. She is also lonely, for her beloved horse, Peaches, has been sold. But Rachel soon finds a horse that needs her, and needs her desperately: The Governor's Girl, a famous firehorse, has been badly burned. Rachel gets permission to care for the Girl in a stable behind her house.
As she cares for the injured horse,Rachel dreams about becoming a veterinarian. But her father, a newspaperman, has very definite ideas about where women belong: only in the home. Father also has definite ideas about Boston's inadequate firefighting equipment, as an outbreak of suspicious fires erupts. To make things worse, horses everywhere begin falling ill — and it is horses that power the city's fire engines. Another spark might send the whole city up in flames.
With cinematic vividness, Diane Lee Wilson brings the very real Great Boston Fire to life in this exciting and inspiring story of a strong-minded girl determined to decide her own future.
Children's Literature
Rachel loves horses, and is heartbroken when she must leave behind her horse when her father, a newspaper editor, decides to move his family to Boston. But when James, her brother, gets the opportunity to work as an apprentice fireman, Rachel finds out about a "firehorse" named Governor's Girl who has been seriously burned in a fire that took a number of other horses' lives. Because of her obvious empathy for the horse, she is given the opportunity to take care of the Girl in a stable behind her new home. As she works with Governor's Girl and the young veterinary, Mr. Stead, who is in charge of the Girl's recovery, Rachel realizes that she, too, would like to be a veterinary. But Rachel faces a great deal of opposition from her father, and, she thinks, her mother. However, this is also a story about understanding one's parents, and as Rachel gets a greater sense of who her mother is, she also gains the certainty that she can be whatever she wants. This book works on many levels; it is clearly a very strong example of historical fiction, but it is also an excellent book for female readers, who will certainly gain a greater appreciation of how the opportunities they take for granted today originated.
Editorials
Children's Literature -
Rachel loves horses, and is heartbroken when she must leave behind her horse when her father, a newspaper editor, decides to move his family to Boston. But when James, her brother, gets the opportunity to work as an apprentice fireman, Rachel finds out about a "firehorse" named Governor's Girl who has been seriously burned in a fire that took a number of other horses' lives. Because of her obvious empathy for the horse, she is given the opportunity to take care of the Girl in a stable behind her new home. As she works with Governor's Girl and the young veterinary, Mr. Stead, who is in charge of the Girl's recovery, Rachel realizes that she, too, would like to be a veterinary. But Rachel faces a great deal of opposition from her father, and, she thinks, her mother. However, this is also a story about understanding one's parents, and as Rachel gets a greater sense of who her mother is, she also gains the certainty that she can be whatever she wants. This book works on many levels; it is clearly a very strong example of historical fiction, but it is also an excellent book for female readers, who will certainly gain a greater appreciation of how the opportunities they take for granted today originated.VOYA -
"I [get] my oxygen from horses," declares fifteen-year-old Rachel, who wants nothing more from life than the freedom to gallop. But it is 1872, and freedom is not an option for girls, as Rachel learns when her domineering father sells her horse and moves the family to Boston. Rachel, however, was not made to submit. When a local firehorse is severely burned, Rachel takes her in and fights considerable odds to nurse her back to health. As she tends the mare and determines to become a veterinarian, troubles loom around her: A spate of fires threatens the city, her newspaperman father writes suspiciously incendiary articles about ill-equipped fire brigades, and thousands of Boston's horses succumb to a distemper outbreak. Everything comes to a head when the biggest fire of all breaks out, and Rachel and the firehorse finally get the chance to prove themselves. Set in the world of the Great Boston Fire, this novel is meticulously researched and effortlessly written. The multilayered characters grow with the story, and Rachel's relationship with her mother is particularly poignant, as each discovers unsuspected depths and strengths in the other. In addition, Rachel's blunt and pithy observations-"It was a plan to change me-to tie me to a tomato stake . . . and make me grow a certain way"-will resonate with readers. Despite being about yet another rebellious, corset-loathing nineteenth-century girl, the book rises above the usual fare and will appeal to girls who like action, strong heroines, and horse stories. An afterword gives historical details.School Library Journal
Gr 5–8
In 1872, 15-year-old Rachel leaves Illinois and her beloved pony for Boston, where her father has taken a newspaper job. The city is beset with fires, and there are rumors that they are the work of an arsonist. When Rachel accompanies her older brother to the local fire station, she meets The Governor's Girl, a fire-station horse that has been severely burned. She hears the fire captain and veterinarian discussing putting the horse down and saves her, finding new independence and adventure along the way. The author conveys the tenor of the times, especially the severe restrictions facing women, the hazards of living in cities, and the difficult and sometimes tragic lives of city horses. Rachel is a strong-willed, kindhearted heroine. She is resilient in the face of her father's continuous opposition to her dream of becoming a veterinarian. The mystery of the fires and the drama surrounding the life-and-death struggle of The Governor's Girl will keep readers hooked until the end.
—Carol ScheneCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information.