Keepsake

Ella and Johnny are distraught when Johnny’s horse Storm disappears from his field. Johnny knows that he has been taken by ‘the pound man’. The horse pound’s job is to round up neglected or feral horses and put them down, but Storm doesn’t come into that category. This is plain stealing. Ella, Johnny and Ella’s granny aren’t going to let Storm go that easily. They round up the evidence and set off to the pound, where they confront the officials with proof that Storm was not wandering the roads causing mayhem and endangering the traffic, but is a well-cared-for animal who was snatched from a field. The pound officials try to bluff their way out of the situation, but Johnny goes snooping about and discovers where Storm is being kept. Together, the children stage a dramatic rescue. A fast-paced tale of two children in modern Ireland in a race against time to save their horse

About the Author

Paula Leyden won the Eilis Dillon award for her first children’s novel The Butterfly Heart, which is set in Zambia; its sequel, The Sleeping Baobab Tree, won the Children’s Books Ireland special judges’ award. She lived in Kenya, Zambia and South Africa before moving to Kilkenny, where she now works extensively with the Travelling community and horses.