Rosie's Magic Horse (Children's book, 2012)

Description (adapted from Amazon): Russell Hoban's last published children's book begins with an ice-lolly stick. Its sweetness gone, it lies discarded and lonely ... until a little girl called Rosie comes along. She places it carefully in her cigar box, full of other sticks. "Without our ice-lollies we are nothing," says an old stick. But new stick wants to BE something and into the minds of all the old sticks, he plants dreams ... maybe they can be something, too. What about Rosie and her dreams that night? She dreams of helping her parents pay the bills. And so, at the stroke of midnight, magic and dreams collide and a HORSE gallops out of the cigar box! His name is Stickerino. "Where to?" he asks Rosie. "Anywhere with treasure!" she answers and hops on its back. Then begins an adventure like no other ... ice-lolly mountains by the sea, caskets of gold, and pirates foiled by a stickling ice-cream van...

Walker Books' Maria Tunney commented, "It's Russell to the core: discarded lollipop sticks, wishing for a better life, dream themselves into a horse named Stickerino!"