First sentence: Hush, little horsie, asleep on the farm. Your mama is near and will keep you from harm. She'll watch when you run, and she'll watch when you leap. And when you are tired, she'll watch as you sleep.
Premise/plot: Hush, Little Horsie is a bedtime board book. Readers meet several pairs of horses and foals in this one. On the farm. On the plain. By the sea. On the moor. In the stall. In the bed. In the bed?! Yes, the last few pages shift the story entirely. Readers see a mom reading a bedtime story to a little girl as she snuggles a stuffed horse tightly. The theme of this one from start to finish is that mothers are always dependable and loving.
My thoughts: Yolen has written about five or six very short horse-themed poems. I have nothing to say against their rhythm or rhyme. (I can be picky at times). But the poems are also very repetitive. There really isn't much unique about each poem or each pair. For horse lovers, it may still work. And perhaps even the repetitiveness can be seen as being purposefully lulling. I wasn't particularly impressed. Then again, horses have never been my thing.
© 2017 Becky Laney of Young Readers
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