Fritz and the beautiful horses

An obvious, dotted-line pseudo-folk tale about Fritz, a kind and gentle pony, also ""sure-footed and always willing to work,"" who is kept outside a certain vaguely medieval walled city because only beautiful horses are allowed within. But when the bridge breaks one day, leaving the homeward-bound horseback citizens on the city side and their trailing children on the other, it is Fritz and not the beautiful horses who wins cheers by carrying each child down the steep hill, across the river, and up the other side. The story is fiat and predictable; the moral far from liberating; and the pictures, though rich in decorative patterns, are static and innocuously pretty. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.