The God of Animals

This is the book that has finally forced me to realize that I love a good horse book. Kyle's 2007 debut coming-of-age tale is set over the course of a blazing hot summer on a Colorado horse farm. 12-year-old Alice's world was upended when her older sister ran off with a rodeo cowboy. Now Alice feels like she's been left all alone to deal with the death of a classmate, her mother's ongoing depression, and her father's stress about the farm's finances. But when a new student starts taking riding lessons at the farm, that's when things really begin to change. Kyle draws beautiful and subtle parallels between life and horses as she shows us how Alice endures and changes over the course of one tumultuous summer.