Sergeant Reckless: The True Story of the Little Horse Who Became a Hero by Patricia McCormick

Illustrations by Iacopo Bruno

Pre-K thru 6^th grade selection – Texas Bluebonnet Nominee/Winner – Juvenile Non-Fiction

Genre or category

Biography

Animals in War

Korean War

Target Age Group

Ages 9 - 12

1st - 5th grade

Lexile Level: 780 according to NoveList (EBSCOhost, 2017)

Summary

In the midst of the Korean War, US Marines find a mare loose and starving but give her a chance since they require assistance hauling ammunition. Sergeant Reckless…  follows the training, downtime, and battles Sergeant Reckless finds herself in as a member of the US Marines.

Justification

Sergeant Reckless… is a biographic children’s book that is cataloged and shelved as a Juvenile Non-Fiction book at my local public library (Tulsa City-County Library, n.d.). This book provides a brief look into the active-duty service of a horse that was officially ranked within the US Marines as a Staff Sergeant, having been promoted from Private at the end of the war. While this book has not received national awards, it has one numerous start awards including the Texas Bluebonnet Award in 2019 (Texas Library Association, n.d.).

Evaluation

For this review, I will be evaluating illustrations, accuracy, and tension.

When a tv show or a movie, or even a specific scene, is set in the past, directors will often put a sepia-toned filter to signify that what we are watching has already passed. Reading Sergeant Reckless was similar to watching a scene through a sepia-toned filter. The illustrations were in shades of green, brown, and yellow which I believe was a smart creative choice because it helped set the scene and tone. The layout of this book is also crucial to the illustrations as it resembled photo album pages and printouts of other documents to help tell the story. The first page in particular included the front page of a newspaper, another included what resembled classified documentation, and others looked like postcards, this was a very clever way to include text as part of the illustrations rather than having them placed in the middle of a scene, although there were a few pages that were designed like that. The illustrator also did a marvelous job conveying emotions in all of the characters drawn, from fear, determination, joy, and even humor.

Patricia McCormick provided more information on Sergeant Reckless in her Author’s Note as well as provided a bibliography on her research that she utilized when writing this book. Staff Sergeant Reckless was born at a Seoul racetrack and was originally called Flame of the Morning, thanks to her reddish coat, until the outbreak of the Korean War effectively ended her chances of racing. Sold by her owner to the US Marines, Private Reckless was trained with the intention of carrying much-needed munitions during battle, a feat that goes against the inherent flight nature of horses (Klein, 2017). She was known not only for her heroic feats but also for her voracious appetites and silly nature that kept morale up within the unit. Staff Sergeant Reckless was buried with honors upon her death, and is honored with a statue at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Virginia (Franco, 2023). Sergeant Reckless: The True Story of the Little Horse Who Became a Hero is a wonderful and relatively detailed story for children that accurately depicts the bravery and perseverance of Sergeant Reckless.

The circumstances of war are brutal, and I know that I often don’t think about the animals that were in the middle of war zones, so the image of a lone horse from the very beginning hooked me, but using words such as “abandoned” and “hungry” reeled me in. I had to know what happened to this horse and her Company. While tension within a narrative may often be likened to works of fiction, Patricia McCormick utilized the harrowing and true nature of Sergeant Reckless’ heroism to her advantage. Patricia McCormick and Iacopo Bruno wove an intricate narrative with their words and illustrations, though I didn’t “feel” like I was there in the moment with these soldiers, I certainly understood that the atmosphere was fraught with tension and anxiety. Thanks to the marvelous storytelling and stunning accompaniment, I read each page and was satisfied with the ending.

I absolutely adored this short book; it was even a little personal for me. The story of Sergeant Reckless was new, so it really took me by surprise when I opened up to the first page and saw “The Stars and Stripes: Korea at War”. The Stars and Stripes is an independent military newspaper that is for the military and their families (Stars and Stripes, n.d.), so not only does this hit home as a military kid, but my family got to live in Korea for two years! So this book is now especially important to me, even though I am not a Marine Kid, and will be adding it to my personal collection in the future. I gave Sergeant Reckless 5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads and highly recommend this story of this brave little horse.

 Photo by Andrew Geer

 

References

EBSCOhost. (2017). Sergeant Reckless: The true story of the little horse who became a hero [I. Bruno, Illus.]. NoveList Plus. https://search-ebscohost-com.db.tulsalibrary.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=neh&tg=UI&an=10577892&site=novp-live

Franco, S. (2023, January 6). Sergeant Reckless: The artillery horse that braved enemy fire in Korea. War History. https://www.warhistoryonline.com/korean-war/sergeant-reckless.html

Goodreads. (n.d.). Sergeant Reckless: The true story of the little horse who became a hero [I. Bruno, Illus.]. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33545089-sergeant-reckless?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=zUC1kQbfEl&rank=1

Klein, C. (2017, December 27). The four-legged Marine who became a Korean War hero. History.com. https://www.history.com/news/the-four-legged-marine-who-became-a-korean-war-hero

McCormick, P. (2017). Sergeant Reckless: The true story of the little horse who became a hero [I. Bruno, Illus.]. Balzer + Bray.

Rossingh, D. (2018, May 18). The legend of Sergeant Reckless, America’s greatest war horse. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/15/sport/sergeant-reckless-warhorse-spt/index.html

Stars and Stripes. (n.d.). About Stars and Stripes. Retrieved April 24, 2024, from https://ww2.stripes.com/about-us#about/

Texas Library Association. (n.d.) Past TBA winners. Retrieved April 24, 2024, from https://txla.org/tools-resources/reading-lists/texas-bluebonnet-award/past-tba-winners/

Tulsa City-County Library. (n.d.). Sergeant Reckless: The true story of the little horse who became a hero [I. Bruno, Illus.]. Catalog. https://tccl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S63C3738552