Daniel Margate lives in north London, and he and his little brother don’t have much to play with, so they invent a racehorse game. A real stray horse arrives during a severe storm, and Daniel finds him while volunteering with a pet rescue… the STORM HORSE was probably drawn to the scent of hay and straw. Jammie Dodger, as he gets named after a jam sweet biscuit, helps dyslexic kid Daniel to relax and feel braver. But as you can imagine, a horse has to be kept secret, especially from local bully gangs.

Daniel has more problems. His school has accidentally picked him on the team for a major race – he can’t run to save his life – and on a reading team for a Big Read Off, both of which will be televised for a local TV reality show. And in case you’ve forgotten, Daniel has dyslexia, and we get to find out what that is like for him. His group for slow readers consists of Molly-May, who is bright but whose family depend on a food bank, Akin Ojo who appears to have ADHD although it is not named, and Ste Gordon, who survived a car accident and is relearning how to live. They form a Secret Horse Society.  

That would be plenty to go on with, but we also find that the 1930s racehorse Seabiscuit means something special to this kid from the Beckham Estate. He has a box of letters inherited from his great-grandfather, Cuthbert H. Brown Jr, who watched this American icon run races and pinned his family’s fortunes to the small horse’s unusual success. He cheered the jockey Red Pollard, as a child during the Great Depression, and wrote his thoughts in letters to Seabiscuit. I guessed of course why Daniel still has the letters, perhaps kids will guess too.

The exciting and sometimes funny tale contains modern parallels with the effect that joblessness and homelessness had on people’s lives. This is a great way to let kids reflect on how people might be living today, including kids from such families. I found the story feels long for a book for eleven to twelve-year-olds, which would be Daniel’s age. Even though one of the better characters is an older Jamaican lad Michael, known as Prof because he is an assistant teacher working on science, I think the plot would feel less padded without his science projects to keep track of too. There’s just too many people to be concerned about in a quite complicated situation. I like the several diversities we meet, and I think the story will be an education in itself. STORM HORSE is by author Jane Elson, who tells us she has first-hand experience of dyslexia. Young readers can follow the examples of kindness, teamwork and inspired thinking shown, and Jane Elson has more books they can devour when they finish Jammie Dodger, sorry, Storm Horse.