Paint the wind

Paint the Wind

By: Pam Munoz Ryan

         Paint the Wind is about a girl Maya. Maya has an obsession with horses. One day her parents were out and they got in a wreck. Both died and Maya was sent to live with her grandma on her dad’s side. The only problem is her grandma is strict and hates animals. The only memento she has is a picture and a box of horses which she has to hide from her grandma.

         Every day for her is the same, wake up, make her bed, eat breakfast, get ready for school. One day when she is home, she doesn’t hear her grandma coming up the stairs. When her grandma sees the horses, she grabs them and tosses them in the dumpster. Maya can’t let her only memory of her mom be gone forever. When her grandma is busy, Maya sneaks outside and finds her horses, then takes them back to her room.

         The next day, Maya follows her normal routine. Since it’s Saturday, she doesn’t have school. She’s working on her homework when she hears her grandma start yelling. She rushes into the kitchen to see what is wrong. Her grandma is yelling at the maid saying she put pepper on the eggs. Maya keeps saying she watched her but her grandma keeps telling her she can taste it. Suddenly she collapses in the kitchen. Later Maya finds out her grandma had a stroke and died.

          Now Maya is shipped off to go see her mom’s sister. Maya doesn’t know much about them, but when two men show up looking like cowboys, she knows she is in for a big change. The men say they are her uncles and the last time they saw her she was little, but Maya has no memories of them. She is taken out to a place in the middle of nowhere where she has to sleep in a tepee. There is a woman and a boy about her age waiting. The woman, her aunt Vi, seems happy, the boy not so much.

         As the day goes on the boy, her cousin named Payton, turns out to be a pest. He is torturing her, hiding her stuff, and calling her names. Her aunt on the other hand has welcomed her like she was her own kid. She has given Maya riding lessons, and told her lots of stories such as the one about her horse Artamisa. She is told Artamisa escaped and now runs wild with her own heard.

One day, one of the horses is hurt and she is blamed. Maya’s aunt and cousin take it to the vet. While they are gone, Maya see’s Artamisa and figures she can walk over there and try to catch her to make up for what she did. While she is over trying to catch her, a landslide hits her. When she comes to, she can’t move her leg. How is Maya going to get back? What will happen to Artamisa? Read Paint the Wind to find out.