The opening to Angels and Horses, the first in Kimberly Wickham's supernatural philosophy-laden trilogy about grade-schooler Tina and her adventures in the Cosmic Lattice, may be familiar to readers of children's fantasy. A young child, upset about her mother's possibly fatal illness, starts crying, only to be interrupted by the hint of something greater just beyond the horizon. Like Diggory Kirke in C.S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew, Wickham's Tina is overwhelmed, feeling that the world is beyond her control. Between her mother's sickness, the taunting of schoolyard bully Chucky, and the terrifying looming of adolescence in the distance, Tina is over her head in worry. But the arrival of Marguerite, her mysterious guardian angel, offers Tina an escape. While Lewis's Narnia series pictured escape as a jaunt into world of knights and castles, talking unicorns and cackling witches, Wickham boldly grounds her plot firmly in the “real world” - the lessons that Marguerite teaches Tina about life, her friends, and herself are gradually applied in real-world settings.
Angels and Horses, and the two novels that follow, continue Tina's spiritual development as she learns more about the philosophy of the Law of Attraction. Positive thinking, Wickham suggests, has the power to move mountains – human beings can choose how they react to setbacks, seeing them either as insurmountable obstacles or as chances to improve their own outlook and behavior. Even the incorrigible Chucky, Marguerite tells Tina, is a blessing in disguise: it is only by coping with Chucky's teasing that Tina can learn how to be a kind and generous young woman. These lessons are at first difficult to grasp, but ultimately Tina's new way of looking at the world proves fruitful: her beloved mother becomes healthy again.
Much of Angels and Horses revolves around Tina's life lessons; it is only in the second book of the series, Summer of Magic Horses, that the supernatural elements of the series come fully into their own, as Tina and her friends are guided by Marguerite into the world of the Cosmic Lattice, an in-between-space in which anything is possible – children can turn into bears, horses can be conjured out of thin air, and magic, or something like it, is omnipresent. It's the sort of concept bound to capture the wonder of any child who has ever played pretend, and Wickham handles it skillfully, rendering the second two books of the series slightly more engaging than the first (although this is by no means an uncommon issue in fantasy series; the first book is required to pull the lion's share of expositional weight).
Wickham's choice to ground her plot and characters so deeply in the philosophy of the Laws of Attractive is a risky one; it may be that older or more “savvy” tweens find elements of the storyline didactic, and consider themselves too sophisticated for hugging horses and guardian angels. But for younger readers, especially those reading with parents ready and able to turn the book into an opportunity for discussion, the book provides a wealth of useful, even inspiring life lessons (when was the last time you saw Bella Swan or Blair Waldorf as excited as Tina is about discovering E = MC2?) grounded in relatable real-world examples (the best of which comes in the case of the socially inept junior neurotic Marly, whom Tina learns to take under her wing, gaining a new appreciation for Marly's book smarts even as she helps Marly negotiate the perilous waters of tweenager friendship) Particularly successful are Wickham's ink drawings, fantastical images of horses, angels, and the book's heroes that evoke the quaint whimsy of an earlier era of children's literature.
Ultimately, Angels and Horses' celebration of philosophy, physics, and above all, positive thinking are admirable, and Wickham is to be commended for a series that is at once a highly useful teaching tool for families and a heartwarming tale of family, friendship, and just a pinch of magic.
