The book's own blurb alleges that James wrote this book for adults and just happened to be pleased by how well children received it. I don't believe it: one, its writing is geared toward young readers, but more, two, when the year's crop of foals is rounded up, author Will James describes only branding ("there was no pain," snork) but Smoky leaves the corral a gelding. It's like that Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle propaganda about the kid whose room is so untidy that eventually he cannot reach the door. I'm like Ramona with Mike Mulligan here: we, or at least I, don't need details about gelding or peeing, but I'd appreciate your being honest enough to allude to the situation.
I admit I expected it, in a 1927 book about mustangs and cowboys, but damn. "All of him [clothes and face] pointed out...the man being a half breed of Mexican and other blood that's darker, and [bad behavior] showed that he was a halfbreed from the bad side...." "Halfbreed" as an adjective (or noun) is as bad as I expected the pejoratives to go, but then James used "breed" too, because, I guess the reader should gather, it's not just miscegenation but the bloods themselves that are bad. And the horse goes from avoiding all humans, in a mustang kind of way, to particularly hating all dark-skinned humans. That's nice.
That happened when the horse was bright and strong. For the rest of the book, he wasn't. And that's why I don't read animal books.
This was be my last Newbery of the year. Five more to go, and then I'll be caught up and only need keep up with each subsequent year's winner.