Arnold Zable (text) and Anita Lester (illustrator), The Glass Horse of Venice, Text Publishing, September 2024, 32 pp., RRP $27.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781923058002
This picture book has a fairy-tale like quality and celebrates the power of the imagination as well as exploring notions of home, disappointment and longing. Claudia lives in Venice with her parents and, each day on the way to school, she passes a glassblower’s shop. In the window is a fascinating display of glass animals. Sometimes, mysteriously and magically, the animals come to life. The beautiful glass horses have wings that they then use to fly across the canals and between the buildings. The glass horses are really Claudia’s favourites.
One day she is given a little glass horse by the glassblower but is disappointed that the wings are broken, even though they’ve been filed smooth. Despite its beauty and the promise the glassblower has made that the horse hides a secret, Claudia longs for one of the perfect horses. When their apartment is flooded and the family has to move, Claudia puts the little horse away and forgets about it.
In her new home, however, she is homesick and misses all the things she used to love in Venice, including the glassblower’s workshop. She remembers the little horse one evening and, holding it to the light, she sees the wondrous transformation as it grows a perfect set of wings. Even more wonderful, it is big enough for Claudia to sit on its back and ride through the skies, looking down on Venice and travelling with Pegasus, the winged sky horse about which the glassblower has spoken. In the morning, her little horse, still with broken wings, stands on her windowsill. But now she loves him just the way he is.
The illustrations have a European feel and capture the vibrant life of the Venice Claudia has to leave. The whimsical illustrations of the animals when they come alive are full of movement and colour across double-page spreads. Claudia’s facial expressions depict her many changing moods from fear as the water comes under the door of the apartment building to great joy as she rides the horse.
This is a book to be enjoyed by many age groups and has teacher’s notes available on the publisher’s website.
Reviewed by Margot Hillel
