My Friend Flicka

Against his better judgment, Rob McLaughlin lets his nine year old son, Kenny, choose one of the wildest colts in the heard to be his own. After the colt receives severe wounds trying to escape through a barbed-wire fence, Kenny patiently nurses his colt, Flicka, back to health. But more is healed than just wounds and in the end boy and colt become inseparable. This short story first appeared in Story magazine and was later turned into a full length novel and remains among the very best boy and horse stories ever written.