Post by tintin on Jul 18, 2011 12:57:00 GMT 1
I recently read “Cammies Challenge” (as you all know) and it was a very nice condition Seagull Library volume. There was a list of other pony books in the same series on the back cover which prompted my curiosity to look them up on this site.
One was “Ponies on the Heather” by Frances Murray and I found she had written another book called “Ponies and Parachutes”. Completely unable to resist the odd, eccentric and quirky I got myself a copy.
It is not a bad book. Set in the highlands of Scotland it is a continuation of “Ponies on the Heather” featuring Jo from that book (where she moved from the city) now well settled in her country home with her friends and family. I have not read the first book, but the second stands alone very well.
Quite a lot happens in the book’s 155 pages. There is an unexpected cousin arriving from Canada (the initially obnoxious Chris who settles down after a stormy start, and who turns out to have run away from his step father, but all ends well) , a TA exercise (Parachute Regiment are the “enemy” hence the title), pay roll armed robbers hiding out locally and a local agricultural show at which there is both a show jumping competition and an escaped bull.
The writer was a teacher and, perhaps because of this, her teenagers ring true. The adventures are fantastical enough to be exciting, but not so fantastical as to be unbelievable. The Highland setting is accurate and well described, although a little perplexing as geographically it seems to be in the west, but some of the dialect is definitely north-eastern. Some of the characters do speak in the “guid auld scots tongue”, but not so much as to be too opaque to the English reader. Both the agricultural and the military elements ring true too.
This book beguiled away a couple of hours on a train journey.
How would I describe it? – very much like an episode of “Heartbeat” but set in the Highlands rather than North Riding. Minus points – not very horsey, perhaps too fast paced. Plus points – easy to visualise what’s going on, especially if you have ever been to that part of the world. Some pleasant gentle humour - incidental characters that make you smile.
Like “The Hidden Horse” more a farm story than a horse story.
One was “Ponies on the Heather” by Frances Murray and I found she had written another book called “Ponies and Parachutes”. Completely unable to resist the odd, eccentric and quirky I got myself a copy.
It is not a bad book. Set in the highlands of Scotland it is a continuation of “Ponies on the Heather” featuring Jo from that book (where she moved from the city) now well settled in her country home with her friends and family. I have not read the first book, but the second stands alone very well.
Quite a lot happens in the book’s 155 pages. There is an unexpected cousin arriving from Canada (the initially obnoxious Chris who settles down after a stormy start, and who turns out to have run away from his step father, but all ends well) , a TA exercise (Parachute Regiment are the “enemy” hence the title), pay roll armed robbers hiding out locally and a local agricultural show at which there is both a show jumping competition and an escaped bull.
The writer was a teacher and, perhaps because of this, her teenagers ring true. The adventures are fantastical enough to be exciting, but not so fantastical as to be unbelievable. The Highland setting is accurate and well described, although a little perplexing as geographically it seems to be in the west, but some of the dialect is definitely north-eastern. Some of the characters do speak in the “guid auld scots tongue”, but not so much as to be too opaque to the English reader. Both the agricultural and the military elements ring true too.
This book beguiled away a couple of hours on a train journey.
How would I describe it? – very much like an episode of “Heartbeat” but set in the Highlands rather than North Riding. Minus points – not very horsey, perhaps too fast paced. Plus points – easy to visualise what’s going on, especially if you have ever been to that part of the world. Some pleasant gentle humour - incidental characters that make you smile.
Like “The Hidden Horse” more a farm story than a horse story.