Terrible Horses

In an exciting collaboration between Raymond Antrobus and Ken Wilson-Max, comes a truly authentic and stunningly evocative picture book on brother-sister dynamics and how creativity and storytelling can help resolve conflict and enable better understanding.

My sister and me fight!
Push Pull Hurt Hide.
We would not use our words.
This little boy does not get on with his sister. They misunderstand each other, struggle to communicate, and they fight. Afterwards, there’s a lot of hurt, heavy feelings and loneliness. In order to escape their constant rowing and clear his head, the boy often retreats to his bedroom when he writes his stories. He writes stories about terrible horses - trampling and galloping - and he, a lone pony, who cannot compete and cannot speak. But what happens when his sister finds his book? Could it be a way for them to finally understand each other? Filled with empathy and poignance, Terrible Horses is a beautiful and powerful story of managing anger, reflection and learning to see someone else's perspective.

Ken Wilson-Max's illustrations artfully combine depictions of the children in their home alongside the inner world of the young boy's feelings and imagination, with the horses rendered in brightly coloured pencil marks. -- Imogen Carter The Observer
A picture book about empathy and loneliness. The Bookseller
Raymond Antrobus has penned a seemingly simple tale of sibling rivalry, but it’s one that conveys feelings relating to discord and empathy, both of which Ken Wilson-Max captures so adeptly in his illustrations of humans and of horses. Red Reading Hub
A poignant, expressive picture book about fraught sibling relationships. -- Imogen Russell Williams The Guardian
Ken Wilson-Max’s powerful mixed media, somewhat whimsical scenes, work beautifully in tandem with the author’s carefully chosen, poetic words... Altogether a demonstration of how storytelling can result in better understanding between people. Books for Keeps

Raymond Antrobus became the first poet to be awarded the Rathbone Folio Prize, and in 2021 he was awarded an MBE for his services to literature. His adult poetry collection The Perseverence won Raymond the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and the Ted Hughes Award. His poetry collection, All the Names Given, was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. Can Bears Ski?, illustrated by Polly Dunbar, was Raymond's picture book debut. Find him online at raymondantrobus.com, on Instagram as @raymond_antrobus and Twitter as @RaymondAntrobus.

Ken Wilson-Max was born in Zimbabwe, where he trained to be a graphic designer. He is the author-illustrator of over 70 children’s books worldwide and in more than ten different languages. He says that he has always believed that people are more similar than different, and that that is worth celebrating. Find him online at kenwilsonmax.com and on Twitter as @kenwilsonmax.

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