Reviewed by Charles Ashbacher for Readers' Favorite

Children forced to live with a relative while their parents face a crisis are generally disoriented and are in need of friends. Many times they are also forced to move away from their known school and neighborhood and so have to adjust to a completely new environment, even when the relative provides a loving and stable home. In Eclair Meets a Gypsy by Michelle Weidenbenner, Emily Clair (Éclair) is a seven-year-old girl spending the summer with her grandmother Stella while her mother is in the hospital and her father is away at another job. While Stella is a little kooky, she is providing a stable and loving home, but there are no nearby children other than Éclair's annoying two-year-old sister Meggie.

Stella has rescued a sick horse, now named Lightning, and as so often happens, Eclair and Lightning are now BFFs. She enjoys feeding him grass from her hands. The added financial strain on Stella forces her to offer to board horses and the first respondent is a woman called Ocean Faa. Ocean has an eight-year-old daughter, Anselina, and their horse is called Gypsy. Anselina claims that Gypsy is a mind reading magic horse and at first Éclair doubts what she is being told. However, the presence of Gypsy and some of the things she does astound Éclair. Suddenly, all things start looking better for Éclair and her positive outlook on life is restored. Now having a human playmate also helps Éclair enjoy life once again.

As a farm boy I have been around large farm animals (no horses) and also know people that loved being around horses. When you are with animals there is a peace and tranquility that someone who has not experienced it can't understand. They develop personalities and they sometimes seem to anticipate what you are going to do. Therefore, the premise of this delightful story is plausible to me, even if the magic is internal rather than emanating from a horse.

This is a story that all children that have to spend time in an unfamiliar environment due to difficult circumstances will appreciate and understand. The author does an excellent job in creating the context for the story so that the reader understands the difficulties Éclair is facing. As the story moves forward and things start to improve for Éclair, the reader will understand that things do get better, sometimes when we interact with people and other times when we work with animals.