Subtitled A Girl, a Wild Horse, and a Fight to Belong, this tale of the Shackleford Banks combines many popular elements in a teaching story. Look at that gorgeous cover. I was sold immediately. The book RUNNING WILD by Lisa Morgan was originally published in 2014 and is now re- released with a new cover. A series is set to follow.

Kara Ellis and her younger brother Logan are on the island, and we learn a few facts about them from Logan, who is ten. He’s acting out a bit as their parents recently divorced. Logan is just being annoying, showing off, and tossing stones at the herd of wild ponies. That’s really out of order.

The tale of young Bruno, a colt turning two years old, parallels that of the kids, especially Kara. When Bruno nips and kicks his half-brother D’Angelo, the stallion Zeus watches to make sure nothing gets out of hand. But Bruno heads off to check out the visitors, and as the two young people get lost, he encourages them to follow him and leads them back towards the ferry point. Kara believes she and Bruno are meant to be together, but the colt is pretty sure he’s going to be a herd leader.  

The divorce is quite a big issue in Kara’s life, as the kids were not consulted and she just wants everything to go back the way it was. But her parents each want to move on, and they are not unkind. Her mom starts a relationship with Brad Tate, which leaves Kara confused. Kara acts out several times. When she runs away one night, Bruno runs off from the herd to see if he can survive alone. Conclusion: it’s scary.  

There’s a lot more to the tale, and I went to Google to get pictures. There is a foundation that manages the herd of feral Spanish ponies and removes a few annually for sale. Each foal is named by it. The horses live on an offshore sandbank island managed by the Cape Lookout National Seashore in North Carolina.

While Kara occasionally decides to pray because she needs help, she is still a right little cheeky miss at times, and every time, she has to learn the lesson that doing something wrong, or being jealous, only makes life worse. In part, she is shown as young and with no agency, much like the brown colt she admires. At other times, she can be strong and helpful, caring for her brother and for horses. RUNNING WILD, with its interesting dual points of view, should be popular among younger teen and pre-teen pony lovers. The cover would make a great poster. Lisa Morgan is a pen name for Lori Hayes, who writes romances in the same setting.