Description

A truly authentic and stunningly evocative picture book on brother-sister dynamics and how creativity and storytelling can help resolve conflict and enable better understanding.

My sister and me fight! / Push Pull Hurt Hide. / We would not use our words.

This little boy does not get on with his sister. They misunderstand each other, struggle to communicate, and they fight. Afterwards, there’s a lot of hurt, heavy feelings and loneliness. In order to escape their constant rowing and clear his head, the boy often retreats to his bedroom when he writes his stories. He writes stories about terrible horses – trampling and galloping – and he, a lone pony, who cannot compete and cannot speak. But what happens when his sister finds his book? Could it be a way for them to finally understand each other? Filled with empathy and poignance, Terrible Horses is a beautiful and powerful story of managing anger, reflection and learning to see someone else’s perspective.

Publisher Review

Ken Wilson-Max’s illustrations artfully combine depictions of the children in their home alongside the inner world of the young boy’s feelings and imagination, with the horses rendered in brightly coloured pencil marks. — Imogen Carter * The Observer * A picture book about empathy and loneliness. * The Bookseller * Raymond Antrobus has penned a seemingly simple tale of sibling rivalry, but it’s one that conveys feelings relating to discord and empathy, both of which Ken Wilson-Max captures so adeptly in his illustrations of humans and of horses. * Red Reading Hub * A poignant, expressive picture book about fraught sibling relationships. — Imogen Russell Williams * The Guardian * Ken Wilson-Max’s powerful mixed media, somewhat whimsical scenes, work beautifully in tandem with the author’s carefully chosen, poetic words… Altogether a demonstration of how storytelling can result in better understanding between people. * Books for Keeps *