I listened to this book with my 9 year old son, whom I am homeschooling.
Although the book took quite a while to pick up in pace, it was almost as though we were watching each and every part unravel! The book was very interesting and detailed, the most favorable part was how the author changed her voice, from mother, to father, to daughter and back again. For those who enjoy a good fictional book, and one in which is child friendly, I would certainly recommend this to every family. I tells a tail of a single horse in who was unfortunate to be different from all of the others. The father who was very disapproving of the horse at first begins to accept it as the horse shows his true talents and purpose. Moral of the story "Never judge a book by its cover"

"The Georges and the Jewels" bears none of the signs of a literary writer slumming it for the kids -- no condescension, just the keen interest in what makes life tick that animates all of Smiley's fiction, but with a seventh-grade narrator. I have never admired her writing as much as I do in the first of what promises to be a series of books for children.