Why I’m not that girl in the book

I never rode horses as a child. Not really. I took a pony ride here and there, and remember one year persuading my parents to send me to a day camp that offered a half-hour of riding in between the swimming and crafts. But I never took lessons. I never learned how to put on a saddle.

That didn’t stop me from collecting horse figurines, though, or from reading “Black Beauty,” “Misty of Chincoteague,” and “King of the Wind” over and over. I knew