Book #36 of 2023: Bea and the New Deal Horse

Bea and the New Deal Horse by L. M. Elliott. While this wasn't the sort of book I usually read, I really liked it.

Set during the Great Depression, Bea's mother is dead and her father lost his job and his home. Because he had been a banker, the father had a harder time of it than most other men on the road with their families. Not only didn't he have the skills that would let him get day work, as a banker he was the one who foreclosed on so many homes...

While alcohol wasn't legal, he somehow found enough to drink. Eventually he left Bea and her sister at the home of his dead wife's college friend's mother with a note telling the two girls to go meet the woman and have her take care of them.

Bea was rightfully skeptical of that plan...

Long story short, the woman does indeed take them in, and this became a found family story (loved it), along with a horse-crazy girl takes care of an abused horse story (loved it).

Everything the book showed was reasonable and believable. The author did a ton of research on the period and everything that appeared in the book. There was only one thing that kept it from seeming 100% realistic: Even though there were black characters, the author touched only lightly on the racism of the time. But, since this was a YA or MG book, that's understandable.

Really it was just a nice, sweet story of a bunch of broken people who help each other and love horses. Can't go wrong with that.