In the dusty heat of Bokchito, Oklahoma, where cattle outnumber people and the nearest highway feels like a portal to another century, a quiet kind of magic once took root. On a 600-acre ranch, far from the screaming arenas of the NBA and the flashing cameras of celebrity gossip columns, a woman named Margaret Rich did something extraordinary. She welcomed a future basketball icon into her family. And decades later, she sat down to write a 28-page children’s book about a horse. That book is My Horse Volando, and on its surface, it seems like a simple, tender tale of a spirited colt learning loyalty and courage.
But beneath those gentle sentences lies a much deeper story, one that connects the redemption of a horse to the redemption of an athlete many people misunderstood. Margaret Rich, the mother who welcomed Dennis Rodman into her home when he needed one most, is also the author of a children’s horse story. That is not a coincidence. It is the same heart, writing in two different languages.
The book opens with the birth of a remarkable horse named Volando Hollywood, born into a powerful bloodline but marked from the start by something harder to name: spirit. He is observant, stubborn, intelligent, and independent, a combination that could just as easily describe a young Dennis Rodman walking into the Rich household for the first time.
The book then moves through the rhythms of ranch life, exploring how trust is built between horse and rider, how discipline cuts both ways, and how a truly wild nature refuses to be easily broken. Anyone who knows the bare facts of Rodman’s early adult years (lost, angry, searching for a handhold) will recognize the landscape. Margaret Rich did not write a manual on how to handle difficult souls. She lived it. And then she poured that experience into a horse.
The emotional core of My Horse Volando is not found in competition victories or public admiration. It emerges when the horse faces illness, possible separation, or emotional loss. The exact details are left gently vague, because the feeling is what matters. At that low point, Volando refuses to give up on the people who raised him. That single gesture could serve as a summary of Dennis Rodman’s relationship with the Rich family.
Rodman lived with James and Margaret Rich during his college years in Oklahoma, and they treated him like another son. He was not a project. He was family. And the book is, in its humble way, a 28-page argument that loyalty does not require blood. It only requires showing up, day after day, in the dust and the dawn of a working ranch.
Margaret Rich’s authority as a writer of inspirational animal stories is unusual, and that is precisely what makes her story worth telling. She is not a career author who visited a stable for research. She is not a ghostwriter assembling feel-good tropes. She is a horsewoman, a mother, and a widow whose husband James’s 2024 obituary listed sons Bryne and Barry, the very same boys who rode the real Volando Hollywood on that Oklahoma farm.
She co-wrote Rebound: The Dennis Rodman Story (credited as Pat Rich), a book that tried to capture the man behind the tattoos and the tantrums. But the horse book is different. It is quieter. It does not shout about second chances. Instead, it shows a colt learning to trust, a family refusing to abandon a spirited creature, and a community slowly recognizing that greatness is not about winning. It is about refusing to break.
Throughout the book, the bond between Volando and his caretaker deepens beyond simple command. The horse learns to read emotions, not just signals. He becomes a source of comfort rather than merely a working animal. And when hardship inevitably arrives, as it does for every living thing on a ranch, the story turns toward slow recovery. There is no dramatic miracle. There is only the steady, unglamorous work of rebuilding strength and reconnecting with those who never left. These are not abstract themes for Margaret Rich. They are the bones of her life.
She watched a troubled young man become an NBA legend. She watched a spirited horse become a symbol of unconditional love on her own ranch. She understands that healing is not a single dramatic moment. It is a thousand small mornings of choosing to stay. That wisdom is woven into every page of the book, which draws on real experiences from her family’s ranch.
The strongest emotional pull of the book is not its bloodline plot or its ranch setting. It is the invisible thread connecting Volando’s journey to Dennis Rodman’s. Both arrived uncertain. Both tested the patience of those who cared for them. Both eventually became symbols of something larger than themselves: not perfection, but perseverance.
Margaret Rich does not need to mention Rodman’s name within the pages of the book for the connection to be felt in the barn. The same steady hand that calmed a future Hall of Famer also calmed a difficult horse. And then she wrote it down, not as a memoir of her own generosity, but as a story about an animal. That is humility. That is authority.
Let us be clear about what Margaret Rich has achieved. She has produced a 28-page book that speaks to readers of any age. She has written a children’s story that adults who have ever loved something difficult may recognize. And she has done so by drawing on the land, the horses, and the family she held together.
Margaret Rich doesn’t just write about horses. She’s spent a lifetime beside them. On her family’s Oklahoma ranch, she raised three sons, welcomed a future NBA legend, and cared for a horse named Volando Hollywood with the same steady hand. Her book isn’t fiction dressed up as feeling. It’s a 28-page memoir of the heart, written by someone who knows that loyalty isn’t a theme. It’s a way of life.
For readers who have grown tired of hollow inspirational tales, the book offers something rare: a story that earned its tears. For horse lovers, it is a quiet story of emotional authenticity. For anyone who has ever wondered whether a broken spirit can be mended, Margaret Rich’s book gives a quiet, hoof-shaped answer. The woman who welcomed Dennis Rodman into her home also wrote a children’s book about a horse.
Stories of quiet resilience still matter, especially those written by someone who has lived them rather than merely imagined them. My Horse Volando by Margaret Rich is a 28-page story of loyalty and healing. Family is not always a birthright. Sometimes it is a choice made in a dusty Oklahoma barn.
