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Blue Flag: For readers aged 10+
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From the land of the racehorse, an international bestselling author writes a horse story for children.
Ger Kelly, a tough twelve-year-old, at the centre of whatever mischief takes place in his Dublin neighbourhood, sneaks into the Dublin Horse Show. This is a very posh event and he and his friends are there to cause trouble.
Then Ger sees a vision of beauty. She is Suzanne O'Carroll on her horse Star Dancer. They are dancing! Ger never imagined that a horse could float sideways, pirouette, or skip like a child. He is captivated.
He hangs around and eventually manages to strike up a conversation with Suzanne. She is learning dressage and dreams of riding her horse in the Olympic Games.
Ger longs with all his heart to ride a horse like Star Dancer. Suzanne arranges that Ger can groom her horse at the show grounds every day, and so Ger begins the first job he has ever had. He has entered a magical new world. His pals make fun of him, but for the first time in his life Ger does not care what they think.
Suzanne and Ger follow the horse events of the season, to gymkhanas, point-to-points and local and major shows.
Ger makes many mistakes and his friends cause problems and difficulties, but Suzanne sticks by him and they become firm friends. The two help each other. It will take years of hard work for Suzanne to achieve her dream, but Ger's dream is even more demanding. He must shrug off his old way of life and become caring and disciplined if he is to be good with horses.
STAR DANCER is a story about growing up. It is also an adventure story, filled with thrills and excitement, and a tingle of danger. It is full of the unique atmosphere of the horse world.
The Author Speaks
About Brian Boru:
Morgan Llywelyn describes the adventure of writing historical fiction:
Links
Morgan's personal website
Wikipedia page about Morgan
Teaching Resources: free to view and download
Teaching ideas for fourth class from O'Brien Reading Programme
List of all available resources
Problems viewing resources? You will need a PDF file reader, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader,
which is available free from
Adobe.
Praise for Star Dancer
'There are no illustrations, but I found it very easy to imagine the pictures in my head because the story was so good.' Child reviewer, Woman's Way
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