The Perfect Horse

I just finished reading The Perfect Horse: The Daring Rescue of Horses Kidnapped During World War II, by Elizabeth Letts. This book, published early 2019, is adapted for young readers from Letts' 2017 New York Times' Best Seller, The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis. I pre-read this book in hopes that I can use it next year as assigned reading for history.
The story is interesting, but complicated. It's real history, with characters who actually lived, and these events happened. Real life is not simple, cut and dry, or easy, and this story of the beautiful Lipizzaner horses, caught in the middle of World War II, reflects that truth. Elizabeth Letts put in a ton of research to write this story. I am surprised by how much I learned about General Patton. Thanks to my oldest child's fascination with horses as a toddler (we read every book, fiction or non, that the library system owned on horses), I knew about the Lipizzaner horses. We have watched youTube videos of Lipizzaner performances. They are amazing, beautiful animals! This part of their story, however, I did not know.
I am not a history buff, and I do not have much free time for reading, so this book took me a long time to finish. I needed at least one renewal from the library. By the end of the book, as the tears flowed, I am glad I saw the story through. World War II is a devastating chapter of human history. Ms. Letts does not dwell on the cruelty of Nazi Germany, or the atrocities of the Holocaust. This book is about horses. She does, however, mention the devastating impact the war had on humanity, and refers to the saving of the horses as "a small thing: and yet" she writes, it is "only through individual acts of compassion that the world was able to climb out of the trough it had dug for itself and attempt to find its way into a more peaceful furrow."
In the Epilogue Letts includes follow-up information on the lives of the horses and main characters from the story. She briefly discusses eugenics and genocide. I hope this story will engage my horse-loving student, while introducing the real historical characters of World War II. I do not want to gloss over this part of history, but I hope to introduce WWII to my kids in an age appropriate way. I think this book is a good choice for additional reading.