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2003
finalists.

2003 Hackmatack

Children's Choice Book Award/Prix littéraire - le choix de jeunes

It was seven minutes after midnight on the seventh day.
          Whoooooosh! A flash of light streaked the sky and touched a magical horse carved into the white chalk hillside. The great creature shook himself free of the chalk and rose to his feet.
          It was seven minutes after midnight on the seventh day of the seventh month.
          The only person watching was Chantel.
          No matter. It was enough. The summer of magic could begin.

In The White Horse Talisman, the first volume in the Summer of Magic Quartet, Chantel, Adam, Holly and Owen set out to help the Great White Horse Equus find his mate and regain his magical talisman. But as the horse rises, so does the dragon. The age-old struggle between good and evil threatens the bond between Chantel and Adam and endangers the quest.

Here is fantasy at its best, a story that raises hairs on the back of the neck and sends satisfying chills up and down the spine, a story that, while clearly drawn from the rich world of make-believe, feels truer than true.

Andrea Spalding is the author of the children's novels The Keeper and the Crows, Adventure.Net: The Silver Boulder, Adventure.Net: The Lost Sketch, An Island Of My Own, Phoebe and the Gypsy, Finders Keepers and A World of Stories, and picture books It's Raining, It's Pouring, Me and Mr. Mah, A Special Gift, The Most Beautiful Kite in the World and Sarah May and the New Red Dress. Her books have been nominated for the Silver Birch Award and the Manitoba Young Reader's Choice Award. She lives on Pender Island in British Columbia.

Suggested Activities

• Draw a picture of the White Horse using white chalk on dark blue paper.
• Create a poem about it.
• Visit Andrea's website to find out what else she has written.