Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2005 (Vol. 73, No. 12))
A spare, graceful Depression-era story tells of a ten-year-old in the desert befriending a man who's also a horse. Bobby lives with her mother and older sister, who sell homemade knitting to pay for mealtime beans. Under a tree, Bobby meets Mister Boots, a thin, bedraggled man who's spent most of his life as a horse and occasionally changes back. When Mother dies, older sister Jocelyn and Mister Boots fall in love. The sudden reappearance of their violent father (Bobby's covered with scars from him) brings a simmering danger. The father takes Bobby on the road with his magic show because he thinks (and has thought for ten years) that Bobby's a boy. Jocelyn and Mister Boots go along to keep an eye out. Bobby's entranced by the magic show, but the father's volatility erupts and nothing is safe. Emshwiller writes everything with care and truth, from Bobby's gender musings to the nature of horses. Plainspoken and quietly mystical. 2005, Viking, 192p, $15.99. Category: Fantasy. Ages 9 to 12. © 2005 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Michele Winship (KLIATT Review, July 2005 (Vol. 39, No. 4))
This tale, subtitled "a fantasy novel," takes place in the unusual setting of the Depression, where ten-year-old Bobby Lassiter leads a mean existence on the edge of the California desert. Bobby's mother and sister knit for a living while Bobby spends the day riding "borrowed" horses and watering a big tree that is only half-alive because of the drought. That is, until Mister Boots shows up. Bobby finds Mister Boots naked with hurt legs, curled up under the big tree. Mister Boots is not just a man; he's a horse, a flea-bit gray, which can change into a man. As her mother lies dying, Bobby's beautiful older sister Jocelyn rides Mister Boots, or Midnight Blue--his horse name--into town to get a doctor. But it's too late. And it is obvious to Bobby that Jocelyn and Boots are falling in love. Their world turns upside down, though, when their father shows up again. He is big and dramatic, and a magician by trade who wants Bobby to become part of his new act, Lassiter and Son. The only catch is, Bobby is Roberta, a tomboy of a girl who has been raised like a boy, and the father who has come back is the same one responsible for the scars on Bobby's legs and her mother's back. Emshwiller skillfully crafts an original fantasy story about a transmuting horse with dark undertones of domestic abuse in the bleak California of The Grapes of Wrath. Category: Hardcover Fiction. KLIATT Codes: J--Recommended for junior high school students. 2005, Penguin, Viking, 192p., $15.99. Ages 12 to 15.

Krista Hutley (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, September 2005 (Vol. 59, No. 1))
When ten-year-old Bobby (Roberta) Lassiter finds an injured man out in the California desert, not far from home, she keeps him a secret from her mother and older sister. The stranger claims that he really a transformed horse named Boots, and Bobby believes him. After all, everyone pretends she is a boy, especially when her abusive father is around, he’s never been told she’s actually a girl. When Bobby’s mother dies and Bobby’s father returns to bring his only “son” into the family business of stage magic, Boots goes along with them to Los Angeles, in part to protect Bobby and her sister. Though they are a hit at the circus, where pretending to be something you’re not is all part of the act, some secrets, like some horses, have a way of running wild, and Bobby knows that she can’t hold the reins for long. This unusual book has a hazy quality to its storytelling, capturing the feeling of waking from an odd dream and still, for a few seconds, believing that it really happened. While Boots’ transformations are the only real magic in the story, Bobby, who narrates in the first person, has a plainspoken style infused with a sense of wonder that marks her as a little disconnected from reality in general. While the effect is interesting, the story and characters are difficult to grab on to, and some readers will lose patience with the evanescence. Still, both Mister Boots’ and Bobby’s transformations, horse and human, boy and girl, effectively highlight the results of leading a dual existence in a world where you can’t stay in between forever, and this may appeal to readers who wish they could. (Reviewed from galleys) Review Code: Ad -- Additional book of acceptable quality for collections needing more material in the area. (c) Copyright 2005, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2005, Viking, 192p, $15.99. Grades 6-9.

Kim Miller (The Kutztown Book Review, Fall 2006)
10 year old Bobby (Roberta) lives with her mother and older sister during the Depression. Life is bleak as they try to make ends meet by selling hand-knitted items. Bobby lives a carefree life, with little attention from her mother. On one of her late night jaunts, she runs into a small man named Mr. Boots, who can change between man and horse. Not long after, Bobby’s mother dies and her abusive father comes back to claim the girls. He takes them with him as he travels the country performing magic. Mr. Boots tags along since he and Bobby’s sister have fallen in love. Bobby loves the magic show but must endure the trials of her abusive father. She manages to survive due to her courage and determination. This book is well written and handles hard topics with sensitivity. However, this can be a dark story as it hovers somewhere between fantasy and pathos. I believe the fantasy is too vague and the pain too realistic to make this a hot ticket item with the high school crowd. Category: Fiction. 2005, Viking, $15.99. Ages 12 to 16.

Rebecca C. Moore (VOYA, August 2005 (Vol. 28, No. 3))
Ten-year-old Bobby-who often forgets that she is not really a boy-lives with her mother and sister, Jocelyn, in 1920s California. While roaming the countryside one night, Bobby befriends a strange man who is actually a horse: Mr. Boots. After Bobby's mother dies, Boots-who was injured fetching the doctor-moves in, and he and Jocelyn fall in love. When the girls' abusive, itinerant-magician father arrives to take his supposed "son" to carry on his act, Jocelyn and Boots accompany them. They live as wandering show people, with Bobby reluctantly concealing her gender even through brutal whippings and a second arm-breaking. Only when a final tragedy with Boots drives Bobby's father away-perhaps forever-can Bobby finally admit who she really is. This story makes for an odd book. The meager scene-setting all but omits location and era, and a lack of transitional passages combined with stilted (or stylized) writing renders the narrative jerky and uneven. Reinforcing the unevenness are an ambiguously focused plot and intriguingly multifaceted characters with only vague purposes. Boots is a particular enigma. He seems a metaphor for Bobby and her feelings about gender and abuse, but would any teens pick that up? Also disconcerting are sexual details inappropriate for readers of Bobby's age. This book hints at a powerful story lurking beneath the surface-about gender, about perception, about how we allow people to treat us-but unfortunately, the author could not quite focus it. For a superior horse-man fantasy, direct high schoolers to R. A. MacAvoy's The Grey Horse (Bantam, 1987/VOYA October 1987). VOYA CODES: 2Q 2P J (Better editing or work by the author might have warranted a 3Q; For the YA with a special interest in the subject; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2005, Viking, 192p., $15.99. Ages 12 to 15.