Mrs. Mack Gallops Straight To The Heart
Mrs. Mack by Patricia Polacco
By now I should know that I'm not going to get through a picture book by Patricia Polacco without at least getting choked up-if not outright crying.Granted, Polacco doesn't write your typical short picture book for young children. She writes for children of all ages, for anyone who is willing to be touched by her incredible storytelling. She has a knack for writing in a straightforward manner that goes right to the heart.
I thought I would be immune in my latest read. I had picked up her book Mrs. Mack as a Christmas present for a young lady who is very fond of horses. Mrs. Mack is an autobiographical tale set in my hometown of Lansing. It tells of the author's young days when she would spend the summer with her father in Lansing.
A horselover, Patricia was thrilled when her father told her this would be the summer that she would learn to ride. She was not so thrilled when her father took her to a rough part of Lansing to a stable that was far from what she had been dreaming of.
However, through the course of the summer, Pat learns to ride. She also learns that perhaps the rough-looking kids who call her Hollywood (because she dressed fancy on her first visit) might be worth getting to know. She also falls in love with the horses and with riding under the gentle and wise guidance of Mrs. Mack, the owner of the stable and all the horses in it.
In particular, Patricia falls in love with a copper horse named Penny, a horse that doesn't warm up to people easily and no one except Mrs. Mack ever rides.
Mrs. Mack has a homey feel about it. It is very much a story told by a woman remembering a summer from long, long ago. She quickly and easily takes us into her heart and viewpoint, and walks us through the events of that summer. While in many authors' hands such a telling could be awkward or boring, Polacco has a sense for the dramatic and knows just how to balance memory and drama.
Unlike many autobiographical stories, Polacco is able to weave in several subplots and actually follow them through at the end to their natural conclusion. She's able to tell us what happens to the horses, her fellow riders, and some of the people who hang out near the stables.
I would be hard-pressed to assign an age range to this 40-page book. It is a picture book, but it has more text than many beginning chapter books. Rather than assign an age, I would argue that the book is for anyone who likes good storytelling, who likes to read stories of peoples' hearts, and loves horses.
While the text is rather lengthy for a read-aloud book, Polacco does break the book up into sections that act as mini-chapters.
The illustrations are very much in Polacco's own style. They are watercolors that evoke rather than fill in so many details that they wipe out the imagination. Her illustrations help set the mood and further dramatize important elements in the story. They tend to be dark, using many earthy tones and dropping out any non-essentials in the background.
I'm not myself much of a horse person. A severe hay allergy keeps me from being able to be in a stable for any length of time. Perhaps that's why I thought I'd be immune to tears in this book. When I got to what appeared to be the sad moment in the book, my eyes were still dry. Where Polacco manages to squeeze out your tears is with the unexpected happy moments that tell us anyone can heal and anyone can grow-anyone, that is, who is still able to reach out and touch others.
