Bon Air author chats with middle schoolers

For a classic children's book about a horse, Gigi Amateau knew she needed a classic setting that would live up to such books as "Black Beauty" and "Misty of Chincoteague."

So even though Amateau lives in Bon Air and stables her horse in Chesterfield County, she chose the Blue Ridge Mountains near Lexington as the setting for "Chancey of the Maury River."

That's how she explained it, anyway, during a lunchtime chat with students last week in the Midlothian Middle School library. For the monthly series, students pay $3 for pizza and an activity related to books.

Amateau's "Chancey" book was published in 2008 and will soon be released in England. Her first book, "Claiming Georgia Tate" in 2005, gained praise from author Judy Blume. Her most recent effort, "A Certain Strain of Peculiar," came out in the spring.

At one of her book signings, she brought along Albert, the horse who inspired her tale of second chances. For the school, she brought pictures of his visit to the Narnia bookstore in Richmond's Museum District last year.

"He loves kids," she said. "He understands that when kids are around, he's working."

Albert came into Amateau's life eight years ago after a long career at a riding school. He bonded quickly with her daughter, Judith, now 16. In the book, Chancey is abandoned and strikes up a close relationship with a girl, Claire. In both reality and fiction, the big Appaloosa horse has eye cancer.

Albert, now in his mid-20s, has had one eye removed to relieve the pain.

"He's still this hilarious horse," she said, while showing a photo of him standing in his stable and sticking out his tongue. "These days, he mainly eats grass. And when he finishes, he eats more grass."

When he's saddled up for a ride, he rotates his left ear to compensate for the lack of vision on that side.

She swapped horse tales with several of the middle schoolers.

Christy Lemay, a seventh-grader, wore her Chesterfield Classic Equestrian 4-H Club sweat shirt. Wesley Figg, wearing a cheerleader uniform, wanted to know if Albert competed in horse shows.

Albert once placed fourth in a hunter pace competition in Rockbridge County, before his eyesight and arthritis ended that sort of adventure, Amateau said. Her daughter, Judith, rode a draft horse to form a team with Amateau on Albert.

"There's a chapter in Chancey based on that," she said. "There was a cliff that dropped off. Horses were bolting. They would see the cliff and run backward. Albert -- with his big, strong Appaloosa feet -- he and the draft horse just went step by step down the cliff."

Contact Katherine Calos at (804) 649-6433 or .