Steve, a Pretty Exceptional Horse

Steve, a Pretty Exceptional Horse is the graphic novel adaptation of Kelly Collier’s picture book A Horse Named Steve. After witnessing a peacock in all its glory, Steve the horse asks his raccoon friend Bob if he’s exceptional too. Bob explains some of the reasons that Steve is special, but Steve decides that’s not enough; he wants to be just a little bit more exceptional. When he stumbles across a gold horn, he decides that tying it to his head will do the trick. He then begins acting differently, showing off his new gold horn and being a general show-off, much to the chagrin of his forest friends.

The tone of this book is reminiscent of Bob Shea’s Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great, but, aside from that similarity, something is not quite hitting the mark for me. In a book like this, I expect to see a character learn a valuable lesson before the story ends. Where was the lesson on what actually makes Steve special? Why didn’t Steve seem to learn anything from this sequence of events? I expected him to somehow come to the conclusion that he was exceptional all along, gold horn or not. Reading this book knowing that it was an adaptation of a highly-praised picture book makes me want to seek out the original version to see if something was lost in translation from the original to this adaptation.

All that said, Steve, a Pretty Exceptional Horse is still an engaging book, one with great illustrations and funny characters. With his wacky personality, big theatrics, and sidekick bestie, Bob, I can definitely see Steve becoming a popular character.