Alberta Children's/Young Adult Book of the Year Winner, 2008
CCBC's Best Books for Kids & Teens, 2008
Free as the Wind is Jamie Bastedo's and Susan Tooke's re-creation of one of the most fascinating episodes in the history of the wild horses of Sable Island: the moment in the early 1960s when it was decided the horses would be removed and auctioned off, many of them slaughtered for dog food. School children across the country wrote to the Prime Minister pleading to have the horses returned to the island, to save them from certain death. This fictional account of that pivotal moment in Canada's history follows young Lucas Beauregard, son of the retiring superintendent of Sable Island, as he befriends and then plots to save Gem, one of the horses.
"Jamie Bastedo and Susan Tooke … do a fine job here of recreating characters and landscape, and a moment in Canadian history."
-The Globe And Mail
"Parents, teachers, and librarians will appreciate the book for its historical relevance and for the lesson it teaches: that lobbying can result in effective change."
-Quill & Quire