A Hundred Horses by Sarah Lean, 215 pp, RL 4

I almost didn't read A Hundred Horses by Sarah Lean . For a glimpse into my decision making process when it comes to choosing a book for review, scroll down. But first, A Hundred Horses . When we first meet narrator, eleven-year-old Nell Green, she is at an after school drama program and in trouble for trying to repair a string of lights on her own. Things go from bad to worse for Nell when her mother tells her that she'll be spending the two weeks of her Spring vacation in the country with her Aunt Liv and her little cousins she has never met. Sad and lonely, Nell feels like she has no say over her over scheduled life. Maybe that's why, when she discovers the mechanical carousel that her father built for her shortly before he left, never to be heard from again, in an old brown suitcase, she secrets it with her to Aunt Liv's. But, whatever Nell hoped to hang onto for herself is gone in a flash when a galloping horse and mysterious rider startle her