Half Broke Horses

by Jeannette Walls
Genre:  Biography

In Half Broke Horses, Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle, tells the story of her grandmother, the formidable Lily Casey Smith.  Lily lived the rough and tough life of a rancher's daughter.  She was helping her father break in horses at the age of 6.  She survived floods, droughts, tornadoes, and the Great Depression.  She and her husband, Jim, didn't have a lot of money, but they weren't afraid of hard work.  Lily set goals for herself that she nearly always achieved.  With only an 8th grade education, she passed the state teaching exam and rode her pony 500 miles to get her first teaching job.  The first time she saw an airplane she knew that one day she would take flying lessons.  Half Broke Horses is the story of an amazing woman who lived a long and full life.

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