Most of Patricia Calvert's books deal with a relationship between humans and animals. The Money Creek Mare is the story of a teenage girl and her love for a horse, and in The Stone Pony, fourteen year old Jo Beth resolves the anger and grief she experiences at the death of her older sister through her efforts to ride Ashleigh's horse. Nature and animals have a strong healing influence in Calvert's novels. And like feisty Kamina in The Hour of the Wolf, her young heroines have courage and perseverance in the face of obstacles and danger. These characteristics are best personified in the young heroine of her first novel, The Snow Bird, about the struggles of a pioneer family against the forces of nature.