Amanda Tero, a talented, homeschooled author and musician, reviewed the Sonrise Stable series on her blog, With a Joyful Noise.
"Last fall, I virtually met author Vicki Watson. Since then, I've been able to read and review her entire Sonrise Stable series. I'm in my mid-twenties, but I still love reading a good, solid Christian children's series. And that is exactly what the Sonrise Stable books were for me. I loved that I could hand them over to my younger sisters without any worries about a bad influence coming across the pages."
Amanda: What was your inspiration for this series?
I homeschooled my daughters through high school. One of my most satisfying experiences was teaching them each how to read. As they became voracious readers, it was important to me to monitor what they were putting into their hearts and minds. I scrutinized the books they selected and was often dismayed at the content, even sometimes from Christian publishers. What I found particularly troublesome was the increasingly child-centric focus that often depicted children as smarter than the parents and able to function relatively independently from them. The books frequently had one or both parents missing, children disrespecting their elders, and siblings not getting along with each other. I really wasn't interested in having my daughters read such warped representations of family life.
I guess that was a negative inspiration, however, once I started writing, I was determined not to write books that followed that trend. I've often thought of my books as a mixture of Black Beauty, The Waltons, and a bit of Grandma's Attic, with me being the grandmother. God set up the family structure for a reason. I think kids today would be comforted in knowing that they don't have to solve all their problems on their own. That doesn't mean that adults dominate the Sonrise Stable series. The main characters are children, but they manage to get along with their siblings and respect their parents and grandmother - at least most of the time - as did my own daughters.
Read the entire interview and Amanda's reviews of the Sonrise Stable here...
