Kids into books: The Silver Brumby

Author: Elyne Mitchell

Illustrators: Ralph Thomson

Publisher: Harper Collins, $14.95

Age Group: 8-12 years

Once there was a dark, stormy night in spring, when, deep down in their holes, the wombats knew not to come out, when the possums stayed quiet in their hollow limbs, when the great black flying phallangers that live in the mountain forests never stirred.

On this night, Bel Bel, the cream brumby mare, gave birth to a colt foal, pale like herself, or paler, in that wild, black storm.

Bel Bel had chosen the birthplace of the foal wisely. He was on springy snowgrass under a great overhang of granite that sheltered them from the driving rain. There he lay, only a pale bundle in the black dark, while Bel Bel licked him clean and nuzzled him.

The wind roared and howled through the granite tors above in the Ramshead Range, where the snow still lay, but there was no single sound of animal or bird except the mournful howl of a dingo - once, twice, it rang out and its echo answered, weird and wild.