You can’t go wrong with kids and animals. This pairing has been a successful recipe in children’s storytelling for ages. Add colorful images, a message of unity, and a lyrical rhyme scheme, and you have a feel-good children’s book that informs and entertains.
This is the case of Linda Gruenberg’s picture book, Good Luck Chestnut and Other Lucky Colors of the World. Below is my review of Good Luck Chestnut along with an interview with the author about mixing a bedtime lullaby and hand-painted images to create her story.
Good Luck Chestnut plot summary
Good Luck Chestnut is essentially a good-natured rhyming poem that celebrates the diversity of the horses and children featured within its pages. Each line describes a particular breed of horse along with its distinguishing features, coloring, and patterns.
Its corresponding pages contains two images of the horse along with a child interacting with it in some kind of play. The horses serve as natural playground equipment for the children who ride, leap over, balance, pet, and bond with their animal.
Each child is of a different race, shape, size, and ethnicity. So, every reader will find someone who looks like themselves. They may also find characters who look nothing like the people they encounter in their distinct corner of the world.
The story
There is no actual story to this picture book. The author notes that it first began as a lullaby containing the line, “Dapples and grays, pintos and bays, all those pretty little horses.” Gruenberg builds on this personal nostalgia to create nearly 40 pages of text that educates readers about all of the different breeds of horses featured in the book in a sing-song rhythm that relates to that breed.
There is no more than a sentence or two on each page. The print is large and clear, and despite its length, the book is very quick to get through. Some of the lines may come off as tongue twisters to parents reading the book aloud to their kids.
The vocabulary isn’t too difficult, though there may be some words that parents will need to explain to young readers, such as “crochet” and “black-eyed Susans,” providing the opportunity to learn new vocabulary. It’s the kind of book that I could see kids memorizing and eventually be able to read to themselves over time. They’ll appreciate the silliness of the language and the simple rhyme scheme that will imprint itself in their memories.
The illustrations
Gruenberg is also the illustrator of this book, and the illustrations take center stage. Painted in beautiful watercolors, the images give a realistic sense of action and movement.
The children are expressive and playful. The horses are presented in all of their glory, each in a different pose and with a different color scheme. Some pages fill extra white space with tiny paintings of flowers, animals, or objects relating to the scenario on the page.
The message
The message of this story is obviously one of diversity, though it doesn’t preach or spoon feed this message into its reader. Instead, it takes a celebratory approach to displaying the different looks of its horses and children.
It also inspires a sense of play in naturalistic backgrounds. It inspires readers to get moving, whether it’s hanging upside down, leapfrogging, or simply sitting tall on something larger than themselves. When the book ends, it leaves readers with a good feeling. And while most of the children are alone on their respective pages, the book ends with a crowd of kids riding on a giant horse, a mix of different types of kids who essentially just want to play and have fun together.
An interview with Linda Gruenberg
Author links
Book Titles
Good Luck Chestnut: And Other Lucky Colors of the World
The Isa Book 1: Isa’s Very First Book
The Isa Book 2: Isa’s Very Second Book
The Isa Book 3: Isa’s Snowboard Book
The Isa Book 4: Isa’s Soccer Book
Hummer
Genres
Good Luck Chestnut: Picture Book
The Isa Books: Learn-to-Read books
Hummer: Middle-grade novel (published by Houghton Mifflin in 1990, but coming soon in paperback)
Book summaries
Good Luck Chestnut: And Other Lucky Colors of the World
A rollercoaster of rollicking slant rhymes hurtling itself through a world of horse colors toward the last simple message that every child deserves to hear.
The Isa Book 1: Isa’s Very First Book
A child’s very first learn-to-read book. The vocabulary is first-book simple, illustrated with whimsical watercolor to help the child work out the story and read it themselves. The artwork places the book in Scandinavia.
The Isa Book 2: Isa’s very Second Book
A child’s very second learn-to-read book, picking up on the vocabulary from Book 1 and mixing things up. It is illustrated with yet more whimsical watercolor to help the child work out the story and read it themselves.
The Isa Book 3: Isa’s Snowboard Book
In The Isa Book 3, Isa goes snowboarding every month of the year — with some wild adventures along the way. This is a Learn-to-Read book.
The Isa Book 4: Isa’s Soccer Book
In The Isa Book 4, Isa makes fantastic soccer goals every month of the year — more fantastic than anyone would ever believe. She kicks the ball straight into — you’ll never guess — the moose’s antlers! the reindeer’s sled! the magpie’s nest! … and many other surprising places. The vocabulary is early-reader simple, though has grown larger than the other Isa books. The book is illustrated with whimsical watercolor and has a Scandinavian flair.
Hummer
When old man Riley agrees to let twelve-year-old Hummer train his Arabian horse for a competitive trail ride, it is the one bright spot in her difficult life. Hummer lives with a mentally ill mother who won’t come out of the house, and a father who dreams, like Hummer, that it will all improve by itself. Will the horse and the old man be enough to roust Hummer out of her habit of lying her way through problems, and face them, instead?
Talking Shop
What do you want readers to take away from your book?
With Good Luck Chestnut, I wish for my readers to splash into my book with a sense of joy, as if reading my book is a game that can be played over and over again.
With Hummer, I maybe just wish my readers to come away softer and more ready to be kind to each other. I like to think it could be a book that builds empathy.
Name a fact or detail about your story that readers will never know is there.
Some of my own horse names are embedded in the text of Good Luck Chestnut—specifically Lacy and Applejack.
In the book Hummer, I myself am also a character in the book (not Hummer herself). I am one of the school children, but I leave it to the audience to wonder which one.
What’s the best review/compliment that you’ve received about your book?
One of my artist friends has a college-professor husband who I’ve never met. When she bought Good Luck Chestnut, he wrote a review of it without being asked. He described my book as “rollicking” and gave it 5 stars. I have closer friends who haven’t had the time (understandably) to write a review. His was spontaneous. Gotta love him for that (never met him but thank you!)
The Isa books are delicious to read with a small child who is just learning. To sit with them and hear them read out loud, themselves, finding the words and getting more confident with every page, is wonderful. I love the child’s pride that they read that book THEMSELVES. Plus, when the illustrations tickle their funny bone, it’s a bigger compliment yet.
What famous books can you compare to your own?
For Good Luck Chestnut it would be Bruce Degen’s, Jamberry or possibly Jan Brett, Fritz and the Beautiful Horses
For Hummer I want to bring up the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. There’s something in the voice of the narrator that draws you to her—something extra.
How long have you considered yourself a writer? Did you have any formal training, or is it something you learned as you went?
I’ve always considered myself a writer. As a child I would walk around narrating things in my head. I was always finding words for the perfect description of normal life, saving it up for books I was going to write. And it’s also a yes about the formal training. I have an English major from Hope College and an MFA in Creative Writing from Western Michigan University.
If you don’t make a living exclusively writing, what is your day job? How, in any way, does it relate to your life as a writer?
My day job is as a software quality engineer for a software company. I started there as a technical writer ages ago and still write the user documentation, knowledge-based articles, and occasional blogs for the company website. Technical and creative writing go fine together—but I do wish I could shift the balance of my time to more creativity and less technicality.
Who is on your Mt. Rushmore of great writers?
Really? Only four? For today I’m going with Graham Greene, Flannery O’Connor, J.K. Rowling and Astrid Lindgren. Tomorrow I could have a list of four different greats who I am just as excited about.
How well do you handle criticism, either while writing, editing, or reviews? Do you ever use that criticism to change your story?
Sure, I definitely use the criticism to change my story. The reader is always right. The best critics are the ones who find the current or flow in my story, see where it leaks, and help me shore it up. Gotta love that.
They have the distance I don’t have, and all I can do is appreciate their vision. Let’s say the worst criticism is simply someone who doesn’t “understand.” Even that is useful. If the reader misunderstood something, it means I wasn’t clear enough writing it. It’s all good.
Like anyone, I like to hear the good with the bad, of course. A little bit of praise goes a long way.
What is the most fun part about writing? The most difficult?
Editing is the most fun. Finding ways to improve my story at the end of the process is like sanding and polishing a beautiful carving. I hold it and rub it and turn it to the light and rub it some more. It’s all reward.
The most difficult is organization in a novel, and realizing I need a plot change. It turns out that one little change has repercussions the whole way through. I pull one thread in one spot, and something unravels somewhere else. I can get confused, lost in the process and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of pages that need to be sorted through.
“What If” Scenarios
A wealthy reader buys 100 copies of your book and tells you to hand them out to anyone you wish. Who do you give them to?
I divide them up and take copies to the Red Cross second hand store, the women’s shelter, the housing for refugees, and of course an orphanage somewhere. I would like needy people to get their hands on my book(s).
Your favorite character that you’ve written comes to life for one day. What do you do together for 24 hours?
Her name is Hummer. She and I would go horseback riding of course and play around on a sunny-day beach on our horses. We’d do tricks like diving off the horses into water or surfing behind the horses dragging along by their tails. We would try to switch horses midstream and see whether we landed in water or not. We might hum a little together, too. We know the same tunes.
You’re given $10,000 to spend on marketing for your book. How do you spend it?
That’s the million dollar (I mean $10,000) question, isn’t it? I could use some advice on this subject. How SHOULD I best spend it?
I would love to give my books wings and send them out into the world. Why else write them? The longing is to see them take on their own life and find their best possible audiences world-wide.
I’m lucky that English is such a big language and my books could potentially have an audience beyond the US. But where do you start with marketing? Should I enter a lot of contests? Write more blogs? Spend more time on Twitter? Spend money on advertisements? Advice, please!
Your book becomes a best seller. What do you do next?
I write the next book, with more courage than before.
You have the means to hire a full time assistant to help you with your writing. What tasks do you give them to do?
I teach my imaginary assistant to do my technical writing job so I can spend more time illustrating and writing. However, I see some potential for comedy here.
What if my assistant sabotages me? What if my assistant would ALSO rather be creative, and hires another assistant to do the actual hard or tedious work; what if they get me in trouble with the boss? I could end up spending more time sorting out assistants who have hired other assistants—and cleaning up after them—than I do writing and illustrating? Imaginary assistants could be my downfall.
What famous artist or photographer would you want to create or capture your book cover image?
Peter Catalanotto. He illustrated my first book, Hummer, and I would happily see his illustrations in all my work. On the other hand, if he did it, then I couldn’t do it myself … so I suppose I should be thankful for the challenge of not having his help these days. I love being my own illustrator, too.
Just for Fun
Your trademark feature.
Long hair, and sometimes I even brush it.
One year of your life you’d like to relive or do over.
The year I had my baby. How I would love to have her in my arms again.
Your favorite childhood book or story.
I was in love with George MacDonald’s At the Back of the North Wind when I was a kid. I read it over and over, maybe even thinking highly of myself for being smart enough to know I should love that book. Our copy was an antique with beautiful illustrations called “plates” that only added to the pleasure.
One bucket list item you’ve completed and one that’s still on your list.
I have become pretty fluent in a foreign language (Swedish) in my adulthood. Still on my bucket list: I would like to play my hammered dulcimer even more fluently than I speak Swedish.
A book that you recommend everyone reads.
Leif Enger, Peace Like a River. Or would it be Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow?
The activity you’re doing when you’re not writing.
Riding or driving horses, of course. In the winter in Sweden I can keep it simple by grabbing the bridle (kept indoors) for my beautiful mare, go out to get her, climb on bareback as we pass the gate, snap a lead rope on the other mare as she comes out to follow along, then I take them both for some quality time on whatever trails we happen to like that day.
I live in the Arctic Circle where much of the winter is dark, so the horses and I have often been out in the snowy night being thrilled with the sounds and the stars, me trusting the horses to stay on the trail because I can’t see what’s under our feet—only what’s over our heads. A nighttime ride in the snow makes me feeling like I have broken every rule and cheated the weather and come back more refreshed than I can even explain.
Your most unrealistic dream job.
I’d love to earn enough to live on, writing and illustrating my own books. Yup. And I could give sleigh rides and wagon rides under the northern lights or midnight sun. Imagine living on books and horses?
Favorite Halloween costume ever.
My favorite ever was a delightful horse scarecrow costume that was a sort of family heirloom passing between siblings and being transformed along the way. When it was my turn to fit the costume, I won first place at the State 4H show with it and it still makes me laugh.
To make the scarecrow we had a heavy cardboard tube fit over our shoulders—sticking out straight like arms and dressed in a colorful shirt, with straw sticking out of the cuffs. Our own arms were buttoned inside the shirt with the reins fed into the belly to give a little say over what the horse did. We rode bareback. The horse and rider had matching straw hats, binder twine braids, and the horse had burlap leg wraps. Of course, we pulled it out at Halloween too, but it wasn’t as charming without the horse.
A talent you have and a talent you wish you had.
I realized a long time ago that it’s a kind of greed or even sin to wish for a talent I don’t have—almost like being the evil mermaid witch who is willing to steal her own daughter’s voice. Or have I got my plots confused? Anyway, it’s someone else’s gift, not mine. But I remember the longing I used to feel when my brother Craig played the piano. I wanted to play like him. Oh how I longed to do that. He sits down at the piano and you swear it is prayer in the form of music.
I have practiced a lot of instruments in my life and love to play (guitar, piano, harmonica, tin whistle, hammered dulcimer). But my musical “talent” is more determination than gift. I can practice by rote. I have clever hands that can manipulate instruments and I have good muscle memory. But the music I play never comes from my soul as it does for my brother. My music sounds as “rote-full” as any music student, trained up with (or without) lessons, and my music never becomes that glorious outpouring that my brother’s music is by nature.
So the talent I have is, sure, I can play. The talent I wish I had: I wish I could PLAY.
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My sister loves stories involving horses! Coupled with colorful illustrations and playful rhyme, this book sounds like a beautiful story.
My class loves horses. They’d be enthralled by this book.