|
Post by Claire on Sept 1, 2011 12:13:00 GMT 1
Our next reading circle book is The Crumb by Jean Slaughter Doty Discussion in approx 2-3 weeks depending on how soon we all manage to get copies of the book. I will also add a poll then. Please post here if you need to borrow a copy.
|
|
|
Post by haffyfan on Sept 1, 2011 19:51:00 GMT 1
Might need to borrow a copy - was going to buy a copy and then got side tracked spending on ebay so trying to not spend any more right now (being back at work will help no end it has to be said as no more afternoons spent browsing ebay/amazon etc for some time)
|
|
|
Post by rallycairn on Sept 7, 2011 4:09:43 GMT 1
Buttercrumb Cake and The Cat! I can't wait! Haven't read this one in years.
|
|
|
Post by Claire on Sept 16, 2011 11:22:27 GMT 1
Have added poll so if anyone has already read it they can vote. I'm just about to start. Thanks to susan for the book
|
|
|
Post by susanb on Sept 18, 2011 17:20:21 GMT 1
Glad it arrived ok! Will start my re-read today....lucky it's short, as I'm heading off on vacation Thursday!
|
|
|
Post by susanb on Sept 19, 2011 18:01:22 GMT 1
Finished yesterday...had a nice little sob while packing for vacation
|
|
|
Post by Claire on Sept 19, 2011 19:08:31 GMT 1
Loved it, but some hard to take bits. More later as off out now.
|
|
|
Post by susanb on Sept 22, 2011 11:00:37 GMT 1
Hey, what happened to "more later"? I don't want to post till someone else does, as I don't want to unduly influence the discussion....I read this first at the target age of the book, so it's harder to be objective as an adult! Anyway, off on vacation in about half an hour, will be back Tuesday! (National Book Festival in Washington DC...where it is supposed to rain for my ENTIRE STAY. Including the days, Sat & Sun, when a quarter of a million people will be outside, with no cover, at the country's biggest booksigning event. Sigh....... )
|
|
|
Post by Claire on Sept 22, 2011 11:20:11 GMT 1
Forgot all about this! Prob best I wait til more have read it anyhow. Have a great holiday susan, shame about the weather, tho if the forecasters are anything like ours it could be red hot sun all week! Its rained almost non stop here for about 5 weeks now!
|
|
|
Post by darkhorse on Oct 1, 2011 19:49:08 GMT 1
I have actually read this one! I've voted but i will wait until everyone else has read it before posting anything in case I give anything away.
|
|
|
Post by haffyfan on Oct 2, 2011 12:24:34 GMT 1
Also now read it (thanks claire) easy reading but will also keep my thoughts to myself until others ready. But my vote probably gave it away anyhow
|
|
|
Post by Claire on Oct 2, 2011 12:37:28 GMT 1
I think enough people should have read it by now, if not others can join in later but....
SPOILER ALERT - DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY READ THE BOOK AS THERE ARE SERIOUS SPOILERS ON THIS POST!
I really enjoyed this book. Not only it is a well written easy to read story, it also has a message about the treatment of competition horses, and the lengths people will go to win, oblivious of the horses welfare. As expected, this makes the book at times uncomfortable reading and its not exactly a comfort blanket read! But i think its good that a children's book should be looking at such issues and not glossing over them, especially as so many pony books (modern ones in particular) place such a large emphasis on winning in shows and comps.
I have no doubts that the main item of discussion will be the death of the pony and it raises a couple of questions which it may be interesting to discuss. First, do other folk think that such a serious incident should be depicted in children's books or is it too distressing? Similar deaths occur in DPT's Riding With the Lyntons and A Horse Called Cinnamon by Jeanne Hovde and I know this has spoilt the stories for a few more sensitive souls. Do such upsetting incidents belong in children's books at all?
Also a related question - is the death integral to the plot or could the same impact have been made if the pony was just injured rather than killed?
Although I do find the deaths of horses and ponies in books hard to take, in some cases I think if they are justified by the rest of the story it is not so bad. I find gratuitous deaths/injuries distateful and unpleasant. However in The Crumb I am not sure the issue that the author is trying to address would have been so hard hitting without the shock factor of the death.
It was heart-rending, especially as the first thought our heroine had was that she had killed her pony with by overtaxing him due to his age. But I think it shocked her into taking the abuse of the competition horses more seriously. After all she had already known about some of the abuse going on such as the horse that got colic and died after beaten, in order to get the insurance money, and she suspected too that Alex was up to something nefarious. It seems that, like many people do in similar circumstances, she had tried to pretend such horrible things were not going on in her beloved world of horses. It was only when they touched her personally that she was forced to accept them as real. I think this makes Cindy a more realistic character than if she has been all out for investigating things from the start.
I'll be interested to hear other's views on these points and any others. Also as I only read this book as an adult it will be interesting to hear the views of those who read it as a child and if they learned anything new from reading the book as an adult.
|
|
|
Post by haffyfan on Oct 2, 2011 18:47:47 GMT 1
In that case here goes.
Really disappointed by this one! It had such potential (still does) but for me it lacked substance and depth...it could have been great but instead it scarcely brushed the surface so it became mediocre. For me it never really got going, instead of going below the surface and tackling the issues that arose they skimmed along at lightning speed to the next part of the plot.
We are told afterwards of other things Cindy has seen/heard that could have been built in the story/plot. I couldn't feel any emotion when the Crumb fell victim to the terrible 'accident' as he was, like every other character, two dimensional, and I felt nothing/had no connection to him at all which is a shame.
To repeat myself it left me feeling very let down and needing the author to go back and add the required depth to each incident starting with the horse in the barn/syringe incident.
This of course comes from an adult perspective....as a child's read it's probably horrific enough to find this sort of thing happens and toned adequately to get the message across without upsetting the reader too much.
Would have preferred the adult uncensored version myself hence my rating of average.
|
|
|
Post by darkhorse on Oct 2, 2011 20:22:13 GMT 1
I don't agree that the all the characters were 2 dimensional, I felt sympathy for Cindy and The Crumb and I was upset when he died. I do however agree that the villain of the piece was 2D and a bit of a stock villain.
I also found that the fact Cindy had seen other bad things happening on the show ground beforehand but they weren't mentioned until after The Crumb's death a bit odd and as if they were tacked on afterwards. It could be as Claire suggests, that Cindy was trying to blot them out, but it didn't really come across like that.
To me the main problem with the book was that it wasn't really sure what sort of story it wanted to be.....a mystery, a traditional pony story or an expose, and consequentially didn't go into enough depth than if it had concentrated more on one area. However, I did really enjoy the story despite it's faults.
I thought the death was not gratuitous and even though it was quite upsetting it was probably intergral to the plot.
|
|
|
Post by Claire on Oct 2, 2011 22:07:45 GMT 1
Even tho I dont agree with all you say haffy (now there's a surprise lol) I get where you are coming from. The book was very short and I do agree it could have gone into a lot more depth. I felt it lacked a little extra which could have taken it for me from very good to excellent.
But I suppose back when it was written it was fairly hard hitting. Certainly in British pony books of the time there was no real criticism of the practices going on in the horse competition world. And as you say haffy it was aimed at children rather than adults. I think if she had written the book nowadays for the teen/young adult market she could have been more graphic and gritty.
darkhorse - maybe I am reading too much into the reasons why the colic incident etc wasn't mentioned until later on. At first like you I thought it did seem odd that she hadn't brought it up, but later I got to thinking that it was done that way intentionally. But who knows!
Looking forward to hearing the views of rallycairn and susan who read it as children and who maybe will have a different perspective to us.
|
|
|
Post by susanb on Oct 4, 2011 14:53:53 GMT 1
I think reading this as a child did make a difference....the biggest thing is that I remember it as the first book I'd read that tackled real, important, dark issues.
Up till then all the books I'd read, like all the grown-ups I'd known, had been stuck in the same groove...."you're too young to understand, to see this, to hear about that", etc. Of course, you DO see and hear quite a bit as a child that your parents don't know you're exposed to, but it's around the edges and never addressed head on. I think the fact that Doty treated her young audience as though they were intelligent and able to handle the truth, even when it was an ugly truth, is something that made a big impression on many young readers.
I think she does a good job of showing that just because it's an expensive, glossy pony, with one of the "important" big trainers, it doesn't mean that that pony isn't being abused. That those big trainers, and young riders who have parents pouring money into their kid's riding, have even more incentive to do whatever it takes to win. That the expensive, shiney front can be hiding something very dark and unsavory.
That said, I'd have to agree that a lot of the info regarding the mystery/abuse came on pretty sudden at the end....I think that it was to show that Cindy had seen things that only seemed a bit odd, heard things from young kids that she'd essentially dismissed, and just didn't string the incidents together in her mind until the Crumb's death made it all gel and she began to make the connections.
Agatha Christie, however, she was not, and I'd agree that as a mystery it's not up to much....a mystery writer would have scattered those clues through out the book rather than springing them at the last minute.
Re the Crumb's death....I did find it shocking, but I felt it was essential to the plot. I did find the Crumb to be an appealing pony....the good natured, elderly pony that had carried Cindy to victory in the local junior jumper classes, been her companion on afternoon hacks every day for years, who slopped cheerfully through the mud that the expensive ponies skittered around, suddenly, with no warning, dead in his stall....it still shocks me, even after all these years.
|
|
|
Post by Claire on Oct 5, 2011 19:30:09 GMT 1
Agatha Christie, however, she was not, and I'd agree that as a mystery it's not up to much....a mystery writer would have scattered those clues through out the book rather than springing them at the last minute. I didnt really see it as a mystery story at all. It did start off like one with all the cloak and dagger stuff in the barn but that part seemed a bit incongruous with most of the rest of the story and tbh probably wasn't even needed at all. I expected Cindy to be hot on the trail of Alex from the minute she saw him at the stables but when she didn't I got more interested in the actual day to day life of the stables and the showing element, and all but forgot about the incident. Maybe it was just put in there to give us a hint that there was something untoward afoot. I think its good that there is some realism/dark elements in children's stories and I feel its wrong to make them too nicey nicey. After all even fairy tales had some pretty gruesome elements in them. Most of my favourite pony stories have some dark elements in them and I think this realism takes the stories a level up from the norm. For example, in A Dream of Fair Horses, would this have been such a brilliant story if girl and pony had stayed together all happily ever after - I don't think so.
|
|
|
Post by fizz on Oct 8, 2011 17:35:28 GMT 1
This is the first book I have read by this author & I really enjoyed it. I thought it was well constructed & I liked the heroine, I thought her very believable. I take on board some of Haffy's comments, but I wasn't that concious of them as I read it myself; it whizzes along & I agree that it was a bit odd about the colic, neck rope bits. I tend to agree with Claire there; she really only put all these things in to context & linked them after she had experienced her own tragedy. I think the death was shocking & very moving, for me it wasn't unexpected, I knew something bad was going to happen, (although I did avoid reading the other reviews))! I had hoped it wouldn't be Cindy's pony. The Crumb's death is important as it gives the story real power, more than if Cat Burgler had broken his unnerved leg, as it he was the protagonist's loved pony. Did anyone else see the topical aspect? A prominent British racehorse trainer Howard Johnson has just been warned off for un- nerving a racehorse & those horses were electrocuted at Newbury racecourse in the Spring. Johnson didn't get a hard enough sentence in my opinion, but when this book was written showjumping horses were un-nerved. Harvey Smith's Farmers Boy & Eddie Macken's Boomerang are the two I have heard about. Farmer's Boy was before my time, but I remember watching Boomerang with my pony club friends, we would have been horrified had we known.
|
|
|
Post by darkhorse on Oct 8, 2011 20:35:17 GMT 1
when this book was written showjumping horses were un-nerved. Harvey Smith's Farmers Boy & Eddie Macken's Boomerang are the two I have heard about. Farmer's Boy was before my time, but I remember watching Boomerang with my pony club friends, we would have been horrified had we known. I agree fizz. The show-jumpers were our heros/heroines and we couldn't have imagined those sort of things going on. It was brave, radical maybe, that the author wrote about such things at the time. I don't think any British childrehn's books have addressed the issue, even today when it is more acceptable to write about the harsh realities of life in children's books.
|
|
|
Post by Claire on Oct 12, 2011 21:56:31 GMT 1
I hadn't heard that about Howard Johnson fizz! I used to follow his chasers many moons ago. Sadly, I think quite a few of them are going to be up to nasty tricks if they can get away with it.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2011 17:44:01 GMT 1
I agree entirely with haffy. I felt quite let down by it. It didn't seem to go into anything in real depth and just zipped along and left me feeling at the end "Oh is that it then." I didn't feel shocked by the Crumbs death as you just knew something bad was going to happen to him as soon as he was switched into Cat Burglars stall. I felt more upset by the horse hanging himself by the rope! Having said that I've read worse and maybe as a child I'd have enjoyed it more.
|
|