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Post by Claire on Jan 27, 2015 0:21:18 GMT 1
Hi all have finally decided on this one as most people seem to have copies of it. This one covers Jan/Feb and then we will have a new one in March. As usual 10-14 days before discussion.
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Post by tintin on Feb 4, 2015 14:18:13 GMT 1
Bought this one just for the picture (can't hardly wait til it arrives - hope this is the edition I get lol)
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Post by tintin on Feb 4, 2015 14:19:02 GMT 1
Bought this one just for the picture (can't hardly wait til it arrives - hope this is the edition I get lol) Judging a book by its cover?
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Post by Claire on Feb 4, 2015 16:40:43 GMT 1
Its a nice cover isn't it? Odds on you will get that one Tintin as its the most common edition of it. Can't remember if there are illustrations in it or not. There are in the original book and also a hardback reprint is illustrated by Victor Ambrus, I tbink thats the one I lost!
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Post by kunuma1 on Feb 5, 2015 23:17:27 GMT 1
Provided current rain doesn't turn into snow, hope to get book to PO tomorrow for you Claire!
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Post by Claire on Feb 5, 2015 23:23:42 GMT 1
Thanks Kunuma x
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Post by kunuma1 on Feb 6, 2015 17:24:35 GMT 1
On it's way!
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Post by Claire on Feb 8, 2015 22:41:37 GMT 1
Thanks kunuma got it. Its a short one and I've read half of it already.
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Post by kunuma1 on Feb 8, 2015 23:22:55 GMT 1
Thanks kunuma got it. Its a short one and I've read half of it already. It is very short! If it's not abridged then the hardback must be pretty small too?? Do you like the illustrations in mine!
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Post by Claire on Feb 10, 2015 0:23:21 GMT 1
Well if I still had the hardback I could tell you if its abridged. Lol yes I do like the custom drawings. I may take a scan of them for this thread.
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Post by susanb on Feb 10, 2015 16:28:18 GMT 1
hardcover is 189 pages....can't remember if the paperback is shorter, though I don't think so. I am recalling why I DON'T remember much about the book....a little on the bland side
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Post by Claire on Feb 11, 2015 22:03:34 GMT 1
Well I have finished it. May as well add my thoughts as I know a few of us have read it now.
I am not normally a fan of the ranch type USA horse story with the exception of a few really good books. This one was better than average but I still found it a little dull and episodic. Also very cliched indeed, not only in the catching and taming a wild stallion by the hero (tho technically he wasn't actually wild -like Phantom Horse in CPT's book he was a riding horse who broke loose and ended up living wild). Other cliches included riding to get to the doctor through a storm when someone is ill, catching cattle rustlers and rescuing someone from an accident. Snow Cloud is a real 'wonder horse'.
However I feel there are more plus points than minuses to the book. It is well written and easy to read. The characters, tho again slightly cliched, feel like real people and the hero is likeable. There is some humour in the book including Aunt Martha's attitude to illness which made me giggle as it reminded me of my mum. Martha gets up from her sick bed to clean windows. My mum was also geting up and dusting and tidying when she was meant to be resting with a badly broken arm and Martha's desire to get well so she doesn't have to put up with her husband's cooking any longer is also mirrored by my mum's words! Yes, the characters and their interaction certainly feel real. Snow too is well characterised. He has his own little quirks and his sudden appearance in a game of American football is quite funny.
The thing I like most about the book however is Ken's approach to catching and taming Snow Cloud. Many USA wild horse stories show the hero battling with the horse to get him tame and have wranglers breaking a horse's spirit in the brutal old fashioned method of taming a wild horse. Ken's actions however are uncannily similar at times to those of Monty Roberts 'join up' method. He tries to get the horse to accept him and like him rather than quickly roping him and subduing him to his own will. He respects the horse. I did think he was a total idiot to mount him without even a bridle tho! I also like the way that Ken and his uncle try and work out why Cloud is behaving a certain way, such as his acceptance of Ken but his fear and dislike of the uncle. For the time the book was written I find their attitude quite modern and sympathetic.
Nice ending, if again cliched. I gave it a rating of good.
Will be interested to hear what others think of these points and anything else you have to say about the book.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2015 21:23:25 GMT 1
Well I must admit I've read this, twice, years ago but can't remember much about it! I know it wasn't really my thing so I never kept it. Maybe the clichΓ©s put me off it! However the taming of Snow Cloud from Claire's description sound spot on. I do love that cover.
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Post by Claire on Feb 13, 2015 23:01:11 GMT 1
Yes I love the cover too. I must admit I probably would forget a lot about it after a couple of years. I had defo not read it before. Oh just a question for our American friends - do you call very white coloured grey horses grey (gray) over there or do you call them white? We are supposed to call them grey no matter how dazzling white they actually are and woe betide the unfortunate unhorsy person who calls them white!! The hero in the story mentions both white and grey colours. I thinks it could be a bit of a silly clique-ish British thing, bit like calling hounds' tails sterns and the like. I do like to compare the differences over both sides of the Atlantic
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Post by susanb on Feb 13, 2015 23:05:17 GMT 1
A gray horse is gray, a white horse is white...so spelling difference, but not a name difference. Gray horses do go more white as they age, but they're still grays. About the only horse would really be called white would be an albino or a Lippizan (hmmm...that last is kind of an exception to the rule, as they only go white as they age!)
I haven't finished yet (have kept being interrupted with REAL snow...another blizzard hitting on Saturday, with potential for another foot...or more!). From what I have read, though, the "white" is mostly in reference to the tale of the Ethan Allan ghost horse, or used in comparing that horse to the living Snow Cloud.
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Post by Claire on Feb 14, 2015 19:22:28 GMT 1
Thanks for the info susan. We would NEVER call any horse white no matter how sparkling white it was. And albinoes, we just call albinoes. Reminds me I won my first ever rosette on an Albino pony called Kizzy. Yep there wasn't much actual snow in the book, just in the title, but sounds like you have had plenty of the stuff Susan. Hope it clears away soon. Fingers crossed we can make it through the next month without any then hopefully spring will be around the corner. OK now here is a bonus question for anyone - can you name the character from JPT's West Barsetshire Pony Club series who appears in the book?
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Post by susanb on Feb 15, 2015 17:14:45 GMT 1
LOL....probably the reason you're ok with this one, Claire, is that it isn't a ranch story. A ranch would be as alien in Vermont as it would be in England....no Longhorn cattle there. What would you find in Vermont? Ummm...mostly Jerseys or Guernseys....it's dairy farm country, especially in the time this book was written. Dairy farms, unlike western ranches, would be small....western ranches are huge because the grazing is so poor it takes many acres to support one steer. Vermont is "Green Mountain" country....lush, smaller, older mountains than you get out west, rich valleys....perfect for raising dairy cows, (or for small family farms that grow crops). So scratch any ideas of stock (western) saddles...(nobody is roping a dairy cow!) or anyone dressed in chaps (for what? no brambles to ride through!). Googled up a few images www.google.com/search?q=vermont+pictures&biw=1366&bih=652&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=7sPgVIv2L9HkgwS_u4CYCQ&ved=0CB0QsAQ#tbm=isch&q=vermont+dairy+farmsOf course, there are other things in Vermont besides dairy farms....people go in the winter for the skiing, in the autumn for the foliage and, most importantly for this forum, there is the official state animal, the Morgan horse!
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Post by susanb on Feb 15, 2015 18:31:11 GMT 1
....and now that I've written all that, I just got to the cattle rustling...straight out of a wild west novel....ROFL! It' is completely and utterly ridiculous....well, it would have been ridiculous in Vermont in the 1700s, in 1950 its just moronic. I wonder if that's why the book clearly didn't sell well in the US?
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Post by susanb on Feb 15, 2015 22:39:56 GMT 1
Finished! Can't believe I'd forgotten the rustling incident from my first read years ago, but it is right out of the bag o' cliches....I think it's in one of Rutherford Montgomery's Golden Stallion books and I know it was in an episode of McCloud I'd agree with your assessment, Claire...it is well written, Cloud has a distinct character, and it's a horse character, not one that gives a horse human characteristics, which is nice, though the plot does feel like it was assembled from a kit.
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Post by brumby on Feb 17, 2015 23:07:39 GMT 1
I agree with Claire, the real pleasure of this book was Ken's relationship with Snow Cloud and the way he was very gentle and respectful of not just Snow Cloud but the other other horses in the book also. I read this story as a kid and had kept it, (although I had given away most of my other pony book!) I suspect it was because of the cover illustration. I haven't read too many pony books where the characters are so caring when dealing with animals, for this reason I think i will give it very good as I did really enjoy! The good overrode the cliches for me!
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Post by Claire on Feb 18, 2015 12:16:56 GMT 1
Interesting to find it is set in Vermont. Not sure if the book said anything about the setting, forgotten already, but I thought it might be near Maine cos of someone using 'ayuh' for yes. I love that accent. (I only know about it cos I've read lots of Stephen King books set in Maine). Yep the cattle rustling cliche is the America equivalent of the British gypsy stealing horses cliche. Just as an aside do you like the Golden Stallion books Susan? Or anyone else who has read them. I haven't read many in the series but I have enjoyed those I read.
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Post by rallycairn on Feb 19, 2015 14:22:20 GMT 1
I have only read a few chapters, but I certainly see what everyone has mentioned- good but clichΓ© ridden.
I wonder how much of this author's knowledge is actually experiential, too, because so much seems like cliches or commonly-accepted notions which may not be right. For example, while it is true that few stories of this kind mention pitfalls or unpleasantries, the fishing info and the farm routines are pretty detailed. But then Ken crawls facedown through the fields and nary a tick or chigger or mosquito or black fly is mentioned, in June in New England. Susan, I am sure you have ticks and mosquitos up there in June, no? And I do not live in a region that has swarms of black flies, but New England does, and I understand it is a huge issue for being outside in late spring and early summer, right? I just think that given the details of fishing and farm needs like haying and milking, the realism could have extended to the nuisances as well. Oh, and what about poison ivy? And what Ken does is so pat - climbs trees to get a better view, licks his thumb to test wind direction - I wonder if Raftery has researched these things rather than done them himself.
Also, though published in the 1950s, is this set in an earlier period? Hasn't said so thus far but even for rural people who might not have the latest technology and conveniences, things seem vaguely more early 20th century rather than mid century.
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Post by kunuma1 on Feb 19, 2015 21:52:23 GMT 1
Sadly we have livestock rustling like that going on over here now!
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Post by Claire on Feb 22, 2015 12:03:36 GMT 1
I dont know when the book was meant to be set, I just assumed it was present day (of the time) rather than historical.
Anyone else read it and wants to add comments?
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Post by susanb on Feb 23, 2015 20:26:52 GMT 1
Sorry to be so long absent from discussion...have been down with evil flu....I'd thought I was going to make it through this winter without getting sick, but I counted those chickens too soon Re the time frame of White Cloud, yes, I took it to be set in then-present-day 1950s, definitely not historical. The autos they were driving up into the hills to chase the bad guys seems to pinpoint it. Re black flies....we don't really get a lot of them in my area in Massachusetts, and I never noticed them in Vermont (where we used to go every summer on vacation when I was a kid), but in Maine, (around the lakes, not the seaside)....WOW. You literally can't breath the air without inhaling a bug. The lack of annoyances didn't bother me that much....authors often do leave them out (how many books even mention that a house has a bathroom BTW, Claire, yes I did enjoy the Golden Stallion books...the only thing that bothered me, as I read a number all in a row, was that the characters didn't develop from book to book. I think if I'd read them, oh, one or two a year, I'd have enjoyed them more.
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Post by tintin on Feb 24, 2015 13:44:37 GMT 1
I liked Snow - I felt he was authentic and scatty, but good hearted.
It is post WW2 (the bandits have a jeep). I did n't find the cattle stealers too hard to believe. In the 80's criminals from London were driving out into the country with furniture vans to steal sheep as they had worked out the average armed robbery netted Β£750 and you could get life, whereas stealing sheep was only theft with much lower sentences. It got so bad the Police deployed a helicopter with night vision devices to catch them.
Also the criminals are genuinely scarey (which is not always the case, some criminals in books are surprisingly feeble)
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Post by Claire on Feb 24, 2015 21:41:46 GMT 1
Hey Kunuma just noticed you haven't put your two pennyworth in - and I know you have the book cos you lent it to me!
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Post by darkhorse on Feb 28, 2015 12:56:53 GMT 1
I've had this books for ages but didn't pick it up beause I am not much into stories where a boy tames a wild horse. I agree with most of the comments. It was well-written and I liked the characters of Ken and Snow Cloud and the gentle way Ken trained his horse. But I found it very slow-moving and a bit dull at times. I'm not sure I would have read the book all the way through if it wasn't a Reading group book. If Ken had had a friend of the same age to interact with it might have been a bit more lively.
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Post by darkhorse on Feb 28, 2015 13:00:41 GMT 1
I forgot to say I spotted the Pony Club member - it was Henry Thornton!
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Post by Claire on Feb 28, 2015 21:18:08 GMT 1
I forgot to say I spotted the Pony Club member - it was Henry Thornton! Well spotted Darkhorse. Wonder what he was doing over in the USA?
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