LARGO, Fla. — Kim Beilein barked out orders to a not-so-timid 2-year-old as Sue Greenberg looked on smiling.
This was a training session with a beast that could handle the barking.
“He’s a good horse,” Beilein said with an encouraging tone as Greenberg’s horse Elliott dutifully ran circles around the dirt pen.
A pediatric nurse for years, Greenberg had an idea one day while watching her horse parade around her stable.
“I just started to work with all the little kids with 4-H group,” she said. “I just thought it would be really cute to have a book for kids.”
She penned "Elliott’s Tails, The Adventures of a Baby Horse," a play on words with "tales," to encourage children. The book includes photographs of the actual horse paired with colorful illustrations. Greenberg wrote it and self-published.
It’s been a hit with kids like her niece, Sage.
“It’s very, very sweet of her to write a children’s book about her very own baby horse,” said the 8-year-old rider while atop Elliott’s mother.
The book has bigger aspirations than just entertainment. Greenberg plans to use it to help kids in hospitals.
Her years as a nurse softened her heart towards sick children. Her "Elliott’s Tails" book, along with the matching 18-inch horse plush doll she had made of Elliott, will be sold during various fundraising efforts around Pinellas County. The idea is to take books and horse plushes to kids stuck in hospital beds.
“I hope that a lot of children will get to read it, and I’m trying to do a fundraiser for raising money for All Children’s and on Christmas Day we’re actually going to bring the books and the plushes right to the kids,” Greenberg said.
“It’s got a great purpose,” added Beilein. “It’s going to be great. It’s just going to give them that much more hope.”
Greenberg will host her next fundraiser on Nov. 10 at Bert’s Barracuda Harley Davidson at 10525 49th St. N, in Clearwater.
You can get a copy of the book or the horse plush animal at www.elliottshorsetails.com.
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