The Sand Horse

by Ann Turnbull and Michael Foreman

Book Overview

One windy summer day, an artist makes a horse sculpture out of the sand on the beach at St Ives. It takes him the whole day, and all the beach people admire it. But when everyone goes in at the end of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0689315813
• ISBN13: 9780689315817
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Atheneum Books
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Age Range: 4 to 8 years
• Grade Range: Kindergarten to Grade 3

Customer Reviews

The Sand Horse

This is a wonderful book, full of creative imagination about white horses in the ocean waves. It is brought alive by Michael Foreman's magical sandy illustrations. The story is about an artist who lives at the coast. He spends one hot summer's day moulding and shaping a life-like galloping horse lying in the sand. All the people walking by stop to admire the magnificent creature. At the end of the day, after everyone has gone home, the horse wakes up but he can't move. The sea begins to wash over him; white horses of the sea are calling him to join them. He wants to go to them. The sea crashes over him and drags the sand horse back into the sea. He happily frisks and gallops among the waves with the white horses all around him. The next day when the artist comes to the beach, everyone thought it was such a pity that his wonderful creation had disappeared, but the artist just smiled to himself for he knew exactly where his sand horse had gone!

A Treasure of a Book

This book is one I must have for my future grandchildren. It is an older book that will never be old. I'm so thankful to have found it again. It offers quite an emotional pull as the reader/listener hopes the sandhorse will be liberated from the sand in order to join its fellow horses who gallop in the seafoam.

The Sand Horse

I am a great admirer of the work of Michael Forman, and am particularly fond of this book, as it is set in Penwith, the part of Cornwall. I have read this book to children lots of times and I have found it one of the easiest books I have encountered to read well aloud. I don't know whether this is because the book is well written, or because it means something to me. I imagine it is partly both. The story is of an artist who, inspired by the froth at the crest of the waves, which are known as white horses, creates a sand sculpture, of a horse on it's side. The white horses of the waves start calling to Sand Horse to come and join them. This he does, and travels with them to the beaches around the peninsular. The pictures in the book are all rectangular framed double page spreads, with text beneath them. Forman has used subtle pastel colours to create his familiar seascapes. They do encapsulate something of the essence of a hazy summer day in Cornwall. He captures well the form and motion, particularly the motion of the breaking waves, with curvature of his brush strokes. I feel that the colours should have been bolder, more vibrant, if they were to do true justice to the Cornish coastline. This is especially true of the sea, which is a deep rich azure in summer, and a bleak ultramarine in the stormy winter. Compare this to the muted hues which Forman uses. This is not to say that I do not like the pictures, I think they are impressive and portray what he wants them to, they do not however give the reader an truly accurate image of Cornwall. But then I guess I am biased.