A poor boy becomes a powerful leader when Mother Earth turns his mud pony into a real one, but after the pony turns back to mud, he must find his own strength

The earth home where Shonto Begay was born sat five miles southeast of the community of Shonto, Arizona. He was the fifth child of sixteen born to a Navajo medicine man. Shonto attended federal boarding schools all over the Navajo Indian Reservation in his elementary school years. He attended high school in Kayenta, Arizona; he attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico and received his Associate of Fine Arts degree, and later earned a degree from the California College of Arts & Crafts. He currently resides in Flagstaff, Arizona where he maintains a studio, The Foot of Sacred Mountain Studio. He also maintains ties with his traditional birthplace in Shonto, Arizona, where he has a Hogan/studio.