Michel Strickland

A Girl and Her Horse Michel Strickland

At almost fourteen, Alexis Fain and her younger siblings, George and Baby Sally, have traveled the world with their parents, Sgt 1st Class Jesse Fain and their Mother, Rachel. This time, US Army orders sent the young Sergeant and his family to an Army Post in rural Louisiana during the onset of the Civil rights movement. The children find themselves to be outsiders, outcasts in a small town school where new students are rare enough, but new students with Yankee accents are a new experience entirely. Alexis or Alex as she is called, being the oldest struggles the most. She is happiest at her grandparents' farm in central Washington state, where she helps her grandfather with the animals and learns the art of horsemanship. Horses are her passion. And on a sergeant's salary a seeming impossibility. The children meet an old couple descended from slaves who live just down the road from them. Despite the dangers of being associated with whites in that era, especially the children, Abraham and Seraphina befriend the children and provide them with the unconditional friendship and support they so badly need. However, the landlord who rents the old farmstead to the military family, is not what he seems. He presents a greater danger to the young sergeant's family than any war he has ever been sent to. In this moving coming of age story, a military family much like many other military families who must deal with absentee husbands and fathers, alcoholism, and domestic abuse, must find a special strength and a new perspective to survive. Young parents must grow up. Children must escape a predator. And due to the courageous action of a very unexpected hero, a young girl survives an act of unimaginable violence.