Sheila Ruble
Winner of the 2025 Willa Literary Award from Women Writing the West!
Cricket's Choice
A year has passed since the events described in Fire Pony.
Cricket O'Conner may have outrun the wildfire that swept through her family's ranch, but she can't outrun the psychological aftermath of her narrow escape.
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Everyone considers her a hero for saving two horses from the fire, but Cricket doesn't feel like a hero. She feels as if her life has been upended. Her grades are slipping, she's not getting along with her parents or her best friend, and she's plagued by nightmares and flashbacks. Trying to be helpful, her grandmother's given her a huge gift - but one Cricket doesn't want. Worst of all, Gonna Be, the problematic horse she rode through the fire and then sold, has shown up unexpectedly in an auction ring.
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Is Cricket still responsible for a deeply troubled horse she no longer owns? It will take every penny Cricket has earned to buy back the half-starved and abused gelding. She'll forfeit her hopes of buying a well-trained horse to show this summer. She'll be stuck with a horse she never really liked, who now has at least as many problems as Cricket. But, can she live with herself if she abandons him now?
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The choice Cricket makes will change her life forever.
Cricket's Choice is the long-awaited sequel to Fire Pony, a Women Writing the West 2020 Willa Literary Award finalist.
Finalist for the 2025 High Plains International Book Award for Young Adult Fiction!
“I loved Cricket’s Choice…. I spent decades living and working in eastern Montana, so when I read about Cricket and her family I recognized that they are the real thing. It is good that Cricket has supportive adults and family around her because life gives her plenty of challenges.
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“In Fire Pony, Cricket and Gonna Be survive a life-threatening trauma. In Cricket’s Choice, we see the emotional consequences that haunt her from then on. In this, the author gives us a quite good portrayal of post-traumatic stress syndrome as we might see it in children. Cricket falls apart, and Gonna Be has his own problems. From the beginning, they don’t get along, but over time, they save each other.
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“One of the unexpected things about Fire Pony and Cricket’s Choice is that adults like them, too. A great book for children is simply a great book.
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“Sheila Ruble is the right person to write this book. She is an expert animal trainer and has a lifetime’s worth of experience working with children through 4-H. If, like me, you enjoy stories about coming of age, then you want this book.”
— Mark Taylor
Nationally Certified School Psychologist,
Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor,
Montana School Psychologist of the Year 1997
Fire Pony
Cricket O’Conner lives on a horse ranch, but she’s decided not to get attached to horses any more. As soon as they finish basic training, her mother sells them and Cricket is left once again without a horse of her own. To her great dismay, her summer job will be working with an especially opinionated blue roan.
The threat of wildfire has her increasingly on edge. Even buying a uniquely painted model horse does little to help Cricket’s growing unease. There’s something odd about the little horse. Is it just her imagination, or does it sometimes seem to talk to her?
During a fierce electrical storm, lightning ignites a wildfire that quickly gets out of control. Cricket and her mother rush to help rescue thirty cats and a litter of Border collies for a neighbor, but their own ranch is at grave risk. Two valuable O’Conner colts have gone missing, the sheriff has issued an evacuation order, and Cricket is forced to make a hard choice.
Should she help her mother defend the ranch house and barn from flames? Or should she listen to the mysterious voice of the Fire Pony as it urges her to search for the missing colts in the face of oncoming fire?
. . . a pulse-pounding adventure that will appeal to all kids who love suspenseful stories . . .
—Chris Putnam-Pouliot, Director, Frances C. Richmond Middle School Library
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. . . a fast-paced, modern Western adventure with feisty Cricket O’Conner and her horse Gonna Be. Horse-loving kids will be swept away with Fire Pony.
—Precious McKenzie, Assistant Professor of English, Rocky Mountain College,
children’s book author, SCBWI Montana 2019 Regional Advisor
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I was very taken with the story, the characters, and the tension-filled moments. I truly couldn’t put it down. . . . Sheila Ruble’s expert knowledge of animals—most especially horses—is evident without stepping in the way of the tension-filled narrative. Richly drawn characters populate the evocative landscape. This is a wonderful read for any middle grader but especially those who love horses.
—Janet Fox, award-winning author of fiction and non-fiction for children,
including a 2017 SCBWI Crystal Kite award
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