56 million years ago, there were horses on the face of this earth. The modern horse is about 4 million yeas old. “About six thousand years ago, when horses first let humans climb astride their backs, a world of change was set in motion.” (4)

Jennifer Thermes does a wonderful job of including horses from around the world in this history of horses and their works of labor for humankind Horses have helped with farming, going to market, and carrying messages, as well as, people. Only Antarctica does not have a sustainable breed of horse living wild on the continent. On every other continent some domesticated horses have escaped and reverted back to the wild, AKA mustangs in the United States.

Once the ‘hosreless carriage’ came on the scene, horses in everyday human life began to loose ground as work animals. Jennifer Thermes states that “Humans traded manure in the streets for pollution in the air”. (I would like to interject that manure on a large scale also has its pollution problems in this day and age, as well.)

The watercolor, pencil, colored pencil, and ink artwork is soft and warm probably much like to hair on a horse’s muzzle. The book’s front endpaper include a world map including locations of 35 of the world’s 350+ breeds of horses. While the closing endpaper represents prehistoric cave drawings of horses.

Do not skip reading the Author’s Note or the Timeline at the end of the book.

All in all, a very satisfying book for horse lovers.