PAINT THE WIND
by Pam Munoz Ryan
Scholastic Paperbacks
Hardcover: 9780439873628
Paperback: 9780545101769
Ages 7-10
336 pages

• About the Book
• Read an Excerpt
• Author Interview -- February 2009
• Author Talk -- September 2007

Eleven-year-old Maya has lived in the sterile and cheerless environment of her grandmother’s regime for the past six years, ever since her parents died. And every single day she is reminded of her father’s lost life by her grandmother who mourns his death with a crippling grief. Maya’s mother, on the other hand, hovers only in the shadows of her memory, while her grandmother occasionally utters a horror or two about the woman who ruined his life.

Maya only has a faded photo of her mother astride a beautiful mustang horse and a few small horse figurines as remembrances. Maya must keep these items hidden from her grandmother or risk losing them forever. They are the only light she has left in an otherwise bleak and lonely life.

The household, which includes Maya, her grandmother and an ever-changing rotation of housekeepers, is void of laughter, joy, warmth or improprieties of any kind. Maya lives in a prison of prosperity, with a fancy house and an expensive education but no friends, freedoms or fairy tales. Maya’s one treat every week is her trip to the library, where she devours books on horses. And though she knows all about the different breeds and interesting facts about them, she can’t remember ever having met one face to face.

This all changes rather abruptly when Maya’s grandmother suffers a massive stroke and dies. The lawyer shows up and announces that she will be living with her mother’s family. He is shocked to find out that she hasn’t been visiting that side of the family every summer as the courts had decided; her grandmother lied to them about shared custody.

All too soon, Maya finds herself on a plane bound for the wilds of Wyoming and the family horse ranch. She is torn, feeling curious about her mother’s side of the family and nervous because of the off-color remarks from her grandmother. But what Maya discovers soars beyond her wildest dreams, and as she gets to know one of the wild mustang horses living near the camp, she finally begins to shed the prison walls installed by her grieving grandmother.

PAINT THE WIND is a beautifully written story filled with spirited characters and colorful descriptions of the amazing Wyoming landscape. Award-winning author Pam Munoz Ryan delightfully weaves two stories together --- that of strong-willed Maya, forced into hibernation and just begging to bloom, and the beautiful tobiano Paint horse, Artemisia, forced into isolation due to a wild horse roundup and desperate for love --- to create a charming novel.

    --- Reviewed by Chris Shanley-Dillman, author of FINDING THE LIGHT and THE BLACK POND

Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.

Back to top.