Starlight Comes Home

Janet Muirhead Hill
Raven Publishing (2004)
ISBN 0971416168
Reviewed by April Sullivan for Reader Views (5/06)

“Starlight Comes Home” is the sixth and final book in the Starlight Series. The ending to this saga is bittersweet. Cute new foals are born, but there is also death to come to terms with.

Miranda turns thirteen in this book and as she becomes a teenager, her mom hopes that she will become interested in more than just horses and not be such a tomboy. But Miranda likes things just the way they are. As she says to her dad when he suggests she expand her horizons, ""I like my horizons just fine."

As Miranda has matured over the course of this series, the issues she and her friends and family face grow as well. This book brings up current issues of dating, drug use, and lying to protect friends.

Miranda likes the comfort of visiting her horse as often as possible and hanging out with her friends Chris and Laurie and their horses. But her horizons get an unexpected expanding when two new students join their school. Dennis is a new boy from the city, and Rose Marie is Laurie’s seventeen-year old cousin who has gotten into trouble and comes to stay with the Langley’s in Montana for a while.

When Dennis asks Miranda to a party, she agrees to go with him because she wants to be polite, but she really has no interest in boys. Plus Laurie really wants her to go. At the party, drugs and alcohol are present and Miranda tries marijuana. She feels terrible about the incident and wants to talk to her parents about it, but can’t without betraying Laurie and her cousin.

Miranda ends up estranged from her friends and ostracized by all of her classmates because they think she has ratted on them and caused a drug raid on the school. And, unbeknownst to Miranda, Chris is jealous of her friendship with Dennis.

As things get more complicated in her home and school life, the horses are her refuge. But when Mr. Taylor says he is taking some horses to a race, and Starlight is gone the next morning, Miranda thinks Mr. Taylor has taken the horse to be sold to pay off some gambling debts. When he returns without Starlight, it becomes clear that he has been stolen from the ranch. Now, Miranda has no friends and no horse to turn to.

As with all of the books in this series, serious issues are dealt with in a realistic manner. Miranda faces some of her toughest challenges in this book. But as readers of the series know, Starlight and Miranda are sure to save the day. And by the end, Starlight and Miranda are reunited, the Stevens family has grown by two members, plus the horses that come to live on their ranch, newly named Heavenly Acres.

The entire Starlight Series was a joy to read. Janet Muirhead Hill knows her horses and accurately portrays the trials and tribulations of a middle school girl as she grows up. Pat Lehmkuhl’s illustrations also grow with the series and we see subtle physical changes in Miranda. The attention to detail that the author and illustrator provide in this book gives it and the series validity. Young readers will feel that they are taking on an important project when getting invested in this series and the characters. It is a great way to cultivate readers for life.

After reading this series, I am reminded of the love and devotion involved in caring for a horse and the trust that must be built between a horse and his rider. At Miranda’s age these are important life lessons that can be carried on into adulthood. Lessons that readers of all ages can learn from.

Make comment on weblog