Honey and the Valley of Horses by Wendy Orr

Title: Honey and the Valley of Horses

Author: Wendy Orr

Genre: Fiction

Publisher: Allen and Unwin

Published: 1^st August 2023

Format: Paperback

Pages: 224

Price: $17.99

Synopsis: A warm and wonderful adventure with a touch of fantasy. Honey and her family seek the quiet comfort of a magical valley so they can escape the troubles of the wide world. A beautifully restorative novel from the award-winning author of the bestselling Nim’s Island stories.

In the mountains there was a valley, and in the valley were the horses.

When Honey was four and her brother Rumi was a tiny baby, her family loaded up their converted ice-cream-van-camper and drove away from all they knew, as an illness swept the sad wide world. High in the mountains, they crossed a bridge to follow a mysterious herd of enchanted horses into a sheltered valley. The bridge and the track disappeared behind them – and now they are trapped in paradise.

In the valley of horses, Honey’s family becomes self-sufficient, fishing, growing vegetables and using solar power. But no messages from the outside world are ever received. When her father falls desperately ill, Honey is sure there must still be people in the big wide world who can help. She is determined to draw on her resourcefulness, self-belief and courage, but will this be enough to find a way out of the valley?

A rich and enchanting adventure full of wonder, resilience and hope.

~*~

When Honey was four, and her brother, Rumi was a baby, a big illness came to the world, and made everyone sick. As Honey and her family travel away from their home and towards the mountains, they cross a bridge as they follow a herd of magical and mysterious horses in a valley, where they stay for the next seven years, until Papa gets sick, and they have to find a way to leave the valley for help. When her family refuse to believe her, Honey decides to venture out on her own with Moongold after finding out about someone else who had lived in the valley after another sickness had devastated the world after a war. Honey knows there is a way out – the path has been trying to show itself – but can Honey get through and save her father, and reunite her family?

Wendy Orr’s new novel is a gentle story about a family living in a magical valley during, and in the years after the pandemic. In their idyllic world, they don’t know things have changed or improved, so they’re trapped and ensconced – running out of supplies, with no options – until Papa needs help on Honey’s eleventh birthday – exactly seven years after they arrived in the valley. It tells a story of isolation amidst a dangerous world, where Honey’s family have been keeping safe ever since Honey’s fourth birthday – exactly seven years. The family’s biannual moving of the van, Papa leaving the pok’s behind, and Papa’s illness getting worse over several days kicks off the novel, and sets Honey off on her quest, her journey to find out more about the great-great grandfather who told stories of a similar valley over 100 years ago. Stories that the family has long believed are just that – fanciful stories. This is a pandemic story without actually being a pandemic story, sort of. It was inspired by the family that Wendy was unable to see during the pandemic. And like many authors, she has wondered how children who grew up during these times now see and experience the world.

Honey and Rumi’s story is one of isolation – they have been cut off from the world like the children who were born or grew up during the pandemic, and their experiences would have been vastly different to those of us who didn’t have a pandemic happening when we were kids, Whilst everyone was affected in different ways by the pandemic, adults and older teens would have had a taste of a pandemic-free world. Younger children like Honey and Rumi would only know isolation. And that is where Wendy’s new novel is powerful – it allows these experiences to be seen and understood through the eyes of a child and acknowledges that the pandemic and events like the pandemic affect everyone of all ages in different ways. It acknowledges that there were milestones and events that everyone missed out on as well, though perhaps more subtly as the focus was on the sense of isolation, and how this impacted the way younger children understood the world when they were able to leave isolation.

Honey is overwhelmed by the presence of people, cars, houses, and new foods that she has only ever heard of. I imagine leaving isolation was very much like this for children who grew up during the isolation of the pandemic years, because that is all they would have known. In a sensitive and touching way, Wendy Orr has captured these emotions and feelings of uncertainty amidst Honey’s decisiveness to help her family and reunite them with the world beyond. I loved that there was a sense that their time in the Valley of Horses was limited – and I could see that it had to be Honey, Rumi, and Moongold who were able to merge the two worlds. Another aspect I loved were the messages between various family members or to the missing family members on either side of the chapters – it led to a few clues being dropped, which worked well when the novel reached its climax.

One thing I have noticed about novels recently is that the ones that deal with the pandemic either lean really heavily into it or like this one, deal with it as something that is there but don’t name it for what it is. Other novels I have read skip it all together – they might pretend it didn’t happen, or they’re set in 2019 or after 2022 – and I think we need all these types of novels, whether they do or do not deal with the pandemic or isolation some way because there will be readers for all of them. Some people aren’t ready to deal with it in fiction yet – and I think that is okay, whilst others want to, or need to see it in fiction. This goes for readers of any age, and for me, it wholly depends on the story itself. I liked this one because rather than dealing with the time between lockdowns or mask-wearing, or losing someone to COVID, or the consequences of pandemics in the future and at the time, this one looks at the isolation that came with lockdowns. In showing how Honey and Rumi coped, it allows readers to understand their feelings as well, and to come to terms with the changes they have seen over the past three or four years of their lives. As a reader, I have felt like children’s literature has dealt with the pandemic in less traumatic ways. Perhaps because it allows readers and its characters to explore their emotions more, whether internally or with other characters. It feels less isolating in a way, even though it is there for younger readers, there is a sense of a universal experience about it, rather than a focus on a particular adult job in the pandemic. And whilst it is important to understand these perspectives and gain insight into what the pandemic was like for front line workers, there is a comfort in having stories about ordinary people and knowing that those were the things that so many of us were experiencing during those years and for some, things they are still dealing with. That is what made Honey so powerful – it was like her and her family were all of us.

I think I have read most of Wendy Orr’s books now, and it is hard to choose a favourite because they are all so different. Each one has something for any reader, and I hope readers enjoy this one as much as her other books.