Red Star

Keira's home is Black Pearl Ranch, where she helps train problem ponies - and lives the dream ... Red Star is Keira's own beloved pony - an athletic strawberry roan who is affectionate and loyal and has been part of Keira's life since she was three years old. Keira loves this pony more than anything else in the world - Red Star can do all the cowboy stuff - spins, sliding stops, roping and rounding up cattle. And he seems to read Keira's mind. 'You'd think he was almost human!' big sister Brooke says. So one night when he goes missing, Keira at first thinks he worked out the latch on his stable door and has snuck out looking for feed. But she searches the grain store and the hay barn and can't find him anywhere. Panic sets in - if Red Star took off into the mountains, there are dangers out there for a lone pony - coyotes, bears, even mountain lions. Anyway, he's too smart to get himself into that kind of fix. 'Maybe somebody stole him!' Brooke suggests. So Keira and her family turn detective to track Red Star down.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.