Hoof Beat (The Saddle Club Series #9) Book

Lisa starts writing a column about Pine Hollow in the Willow Creek gazette, Stevie gets a new "sister", and Carole tries to begin training Samson. For this book, every character basically has a plot line all to themselves.

The most distinctive is Lisa's. Although originally inspired to write by watching Carole training Samson, Lisa seems to quickly forget the foal's first lessons when she finds out things are disappearing in the stables - and she's certain Pine Hollow has a thief. He accusations make the rest of the students, not to mention Max and Ms. Reg, disagreeable towards her new hobby.

Meanwhile Stevie has a visitor living with her for a few weeks, New York City girl Trudy. She has a very... distinctive dress style, and her descriptions are by far the most fun and amusing. Not to mention creative!

Carole's goal to train Samson falls in the background because of Lisa's column, but is set back anyhow where Stevie trains Samson for Carole, and instead of training him, teaches him games!

Trudy was a truly awesome character to read about, and I'll bet you that Bonnie Bryant had loads of fun creating her. I didn't like how Lisa doesn't even end up writing about Samson, her original inspiration, and the way the whole newspaper thing was handled was just kind of... weird and awkward. Carole's training was, as it would be, quite logical and a learning experience.

I would have liked it a lot more (I like reading about writers) if there had been less drama with the newspaper. I really remember these books being less dramatic, I guess I had a bigger tolerance for that when I was younger.