When Summer Camp Becomes a Lifeline: Dan Elish's "One Last Ride" Explores Healing Through Horses and Friendship

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In the present day, twelve-year-old Jackson arrives at Flying Eagle, a no-frills camp in rural Vermont, expecting woodshop and archery. What he finds instead is Merrylegs-a brown mare with a black mane who becomes his anchor during the most turbulent summer of his life.

Dan Elish's "One Last Ride" is a coming-of-age story that understands what many middle-grade novels overlook: children experiencing family upheaval don't need platitudes. They need something to hold onto. And while the market is saturated with stories about girls finding solace with horses, books exploring how boys navigate emotional complexity through that same connection are virtually nonexistent.

Kirkus Reviews calls it "a sensitively written, bittersweet homage to that moment in childhood when it becomes time to grow up," noting that "Elish has crafted a nuanced and perceptive story of a boy on the cusp of teenage hood that is likely to resonate with older children and young adults."

For Jackson, that lifeline is the daily ritual of caring for Merrylegs. He leads her in from the pasture each morning, curries and brushes before saddling, presses his head into her mane during quiet moments. These small acts provide stability as his parents' marriage collapses back home in New York City.

What makes "One Last Ride" work is that Elish refuses to sanitize childhood trauma. Jackson isn't "fixed" by his summer at camp. He experiences his first kiss, navigates friendship drama with his cabinmate Mateo, and witnesses a devastating tragedy on the trail that forces him to confront grief in real time. The novel doesn't promise easy answers. It shows how young people learn to carry out difficult experiences.

The story draws heavily from Elish's own childhood. In 1972, he spent a summer at Camp Sangamon in Vermont, where he experienced his parents' divorce and watched as a horse named "He" broke his leg on a trail ride and had to be euthanized.

Over fifty years later, Elish reconnected with his counselor Doug Johnson through Facebook. After sending Johnson an early draft of "One Last Ride," the two met for lunch to discuss that formative summer. Two weeks later, a package arrived: the bridle and reins from the horse that died that day, preserved by Johnson for half a century and now passed to Elish as a tangible link to a memory that shaped them both.

The reins hanging in Elish's closet speak to the book's deeper purpose. "One Last Ride" is about how children build internal resources when external stability crumbles, how grief and joy can coexist in a single summer, and how formative relationships continue to matter across decades.

For educators and librarians working with children navigating divorce, loss, or family transition, "One Last Ride" offers something increasingly rare: a story that trusts young readers to sit with complexity. Jackson doesn't emerge "healed" he emerges different, with "a little something extra in the tank."

Dan Elish is the author of thirteen books including "The Worldwide Dessert Contest," "Nine Wives," as well as the Broadway musical "13," co-written with Jason Robert Brown and Robert Horn. He lives in New York City.

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