Mister Boots by Carol Emshwiller

Mister Boots by Carol Emshwiller takes place just before and during the depression. Bobby (Roberta) is 10. She has lived all her life with her mother and sister, Jocelyn. While her sister and mother stay inside and knit all day to earn money, Bobby is free to roam around the California desert where they live. On one such occasion, Bobby meets Mr. Boots. At first, she thinks he's a bum - she finds him beaten, starving, and naked. Later she finds out that amazingly, Mr. Boots is actually a horse! He escaped his harsh life with humans and ended up in the wilderness. Bobby tries to nurse him back to health, bringing him her long-lost father's old clothes, left overs, and keeping him company. Then, the worst happens. Bobby and Jocelyn's mother dies and their father returns. Mr. Lassiter is a famous magician, and, thinking Bobby is a boy, decides to take 'him' performing! Jocelyn and Mr. Boots have become quite close since the death of the girls' mother, and the decide to go, too, to make sure Mr. Lassiter treats Bobby right. Bobby and Mr. Boots become a regular part of the act, traveling from place to place performing. As much as Mr. Lassiter would like for Mr. Boots to transform onstage, he refuses. He only transforms to his horse form, Midnight Blue, when he's really upset - like when the magician threatens to beat Bobby. Things go from bad to worse when they meet up with a huge group of other performers and find out that Mr. Lassiter is married! The entire group continues to try to perform, despite the economic strain, due to the Great Depression. Eventually, things come to a head when Mr. Lassiter tries to beat Mr. Boots and Bobby reveals her true GIRL self to him.

This was a very strange book. I didn't really like it. There was so much going on throughout the whole thing, I had a hard time deciding what the story was really about. It was part fantasy, part realistic fiction, part historical fiction. It had issues including death, abuse, relationships, the depression. There were horses, circus performers, singers. There were so many different ideas, I felt like I got cheated out of really getting to explore each of them deeply.