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I’ve been spending this year reading every Patricia Polacco book I can get my hands on. She’s so wonderfully prolific that even after almost a dozen titles, I still have many more treasures to discover. And somehow, every time I read one of her autobiographical stories, I end up crying. Either Patricia Polacco has lived the most storied life of anyone I’ve ever read about, or she has such an extraordinary gift for noticing, remembering, and honoring the beauty in her experiences. Likely both.
In Mrs. Mack, Polacco returns to her tenth summer—a season spent in Michigan with her father and grandparents, as she did almost every year of her childhood. One evening, while chewing sweet corn on the “Talk Porch,” her dad announces that this will be the summer she learns to ride a horse. A dream come true for Pat, who has loved horses her whole life.
But her dad doesn’t drive her to a picturesque country stable to buy a horse for her grandparents’ farm. Instead, they head into the rough part of Lansing—“Dogpatch,” as Patricia calls it—where a tired old trailer, some tough-looking kids, and a worn-out barn wait. There, a woman in snakeskin boots steps out of a beat-up Chevy Impala. This is Mrs. Mack, and she turns out to be a horse trainer with a special mission.
Throughout that summer, Patricia learns more than just how to ride. She learns to listen, to fall, to get back on. The rough kids become her friends. The mean old man by the fence turns out to be not so mean after all. And Mrs. Mack, Southern, strong, and glorious, becomes a steadying force in Patricia’s life. By the end of the summer, Patricia has truly earned her place in the barn—and when Mrs. Mack lets her ride Penny, the horse she loves most, it seals the bond between them. Patricia will spend the next seven summers with Penny, until she leaves for college and gives her beloved horse back.
Mrs. Mack is a tribute—to horses, yes, but even more to the people who see potential in you and expect you to rise to it. Polacco’s storytelling is as vivid and heartfelt as ever, rich with detail and emotion. She often credits her immigrant grandparents for her love of story, and it’s easy to see how their influence shaped her into someone who sees meaning in memory and mines the past for the stories that shaped her.
This is one of my favorite titles in her autobiographical collection. I’d recommend it to anyone who loves horses, of course—but even more to those who appreciate stories of unexpected friendships, hard-earned trust, and the quiet heroes.