Emshwiller, Carol. Mister Boots.

EMSHWILLER, Carol. Mister Boots. Penguin, Viking. 192p. c2005. 0-670-05968-4. $15.99. J

This tale, subtitled "a fantasy novel," takes place in the unusual setting of the Depression, where ten-year-old Bobby Lassiter leads a mean existence on the edge of the California desert. Bobby's mother and sister knit for a living while Bobby spends the day riding "borrowed" horses and watering a big tree that is only half-alive because of the drought. That is, until Mister Boots shows up.

Bobby finds Mister Boots naked with hurt legs, curled up under the big tree. Mister Boots is not just a man; he's a horse, a flea-bit gray, which can change into a man. As her mother lies dying, Bobby's beautiful older sister Jocelyn rides Mister Boots, or Midnight Blue--his horse name--into town to get a doctor. But it's too late. And it is obvious to Bobby that Jocelyn and Boots are falling in love. Their world turns upside down, though, when their father shows up again. He is big and dramatic, and a magician by trade who wants Bobby to become part of his new act, Lassiter and Son. The only catch is, Bobby is Roberta, a tomboy of a girl who has been raised like a boy, and the father who has come back is the same one responsible for the scars on Bobby's legs and her mother's back.

Emshwiller skillfully crafts an original fantasy story about a transmuting horse with dark undertones of domestic abuse in the bleak California of The Grapes of Wrath. Michele Winship, Asst. Prof., Capital Univ., Columbus, OH

J--Recommended for junior high school students. The contents are of particular interest to young adolescents and their teachers.