Post by Claire on Dec 9, 2011 13:54:49 GMT 1
WHITE POLES by SHIRLEY FAULKNER-HORNE
SUMMARY:
Jennifer loves riding but her parents are nervous due to her mother's brother being killed in a hunting accident some years before. Then her horsy grandmother Lady Peebles buys Jennifer a lovely new pony called Skipper. When Jennifer finds out that the pony is a superb
jumper and has in fact been registered as a juvenile grade A jumper she longs to show jump him, her ambition being to jump at the International Horse Show at the White City. However her parents forbid her from jumping at shows after a friend has a bad riding accident. Jennifer is fed up with being wrapped up in cotton wool and hatches a daring plan to run off to London and enter for the show on her own...
REVIEW:
This is a reasonably good old-fashioned show jumping story. It is well written and readable and very traditional in tone. It does start off fairly slowly but as jennifer begins to hatch her plan and sets off for the horse show alone it gets more gripping. The story is also enhanced by the beautiful Peter Biegel illustrations.
The main down-side for me, which I have noticed in other books by the author, is the rather upper class tone of the book. Our heroine's grandmother is a Lady Peebles who lives in a mansion, her father is also rich and they have servants and grooms. They even hob-nob with top show jumping stars. There are only 2 classes of people in the book, the riding set who are all rich and from 'the top drawer' and the working class who all seem to comprise of servants, drop their aitches and are expected to be subserviant. It sticks in the craw rather when Jennifer is befriended by an old working class man at The White City, whom she addresses as Barker, disrespectfully dropping the Mr. and treating him as an inferior, despite the fact he is much older than her and going out of his way to help her. She even has him doing her horse for her whilst she is off exploring the place! And this is considered all quite normal by the author. I feel that this sort of thing perpetuates the old criticism that pony books are elitist and have no relation to the reality of the average person. In general this is untrue, but sadly in this case the criticism must be upheld.
I do prefer more down-to-earth settings and feel more sympathetic to struggling poverty stricken heroines than the 'poor little rich girl' figure. The author however has made it possible for us working class readers to sympathise somewhat with Jennifer by giving her the obstacle of over-protective parents standing in the way of the pursuit of her dreams. However as her happiness seems to rely on taking part in a horse show rather than something more serious, such as the prospect of losing her horse, we don't really feel a huge emotional
attachment. Diana Pullein-Thompson in Three Ponies and Shannan does a much better job of portraying the 'poor little rich girl' figure: her heroine's very real unhappiness and loneliness contrasts with Jennifer's childish tantrum when she doesn't get her own way. However one does have to admire Jennifer's pluck in going off and competing on her own, even if everything does seem to go fairly easily for her (she has plenty of money to pay for show entries and accomodation, she just happens to overhear a conversation about a good hotel exactly where she needs to be, etc).
The best part of the story is that of the horse show which is re-created very well. It is also good that the rules of the jumping competition are explained in the story so that non-riders and novices can understand what is going on. The realism is enhanced by plans of the two jumping courses included in the illustrations. Although in general the book scores fairly low on 'Claire's Cliche-o-meter' this last part of the book does drift firmly into cliche territory, with realism going out of the window in favour of a trite ending.
Another downside of the story is that the character of Skipper the pony is not developed at all. We know his colour and that he is a good jumper but he has no personality of his own. Jennifer seems to see him mainly as a means to an end in fulfilling her jumping ambitions, and there is little evidence that she cares much about him. Although in defence this is a show jumping story rather than one that focuses on the rider-pony relationship, it still would have been nice to have had some emotional attachment between Jennifer and Skipper. This lack of attachment also reduces the empathy we have for Jennifer as a character.
It is almost as if the book itself reflects the upper class British attitude of the time, all stiff upper lip, don't show emotion and get on with the business of winning.
All in all, not a classic in the show jumping sub-genre, but even so a fairly enjoyable, undemanding read to wile away a few hours on a cold winter night. There is a sequel, Look Before You Leap, in which Jennifer has left school and has taken up eventing, and I liked White Poles enough to read the sequel if it comes my way, though I wouldn't go out of my way to search it out.
I would award it 2-3 horseshoes.
SUMMARY:
Jennifer loves riding but her parents are nervous due to her mother's brother being killed in a hunting accident some years before. Then her horsy grandmother Lady Peebles buys Jennifer a lovely new pony called Skipper. When Jennifer finds out that the pony is a superb
jumper and has in fact been registered as a juvenile grade A jumper she longs to show jump him, her ambition being to jump at the International Horse Show at the White City. However her parents forbid her from jumping at shows after a friend has a bad riding accident. Jennifer is fed up with being wrapped up in cotton wool and hatches a daring plan to run off to London and enter for the show on her own...
REVIEW:
This is a reasonably good old-fashioned show jumping story. It is well written and readable and very traditional in tone. It does start off fairly slowly but as jennifer begins to hatch her plan and sets off for the horse show alone it gets more gripping. The story is also enhanced by the beautiful Peter Biegel illustrations.
The main down-side for me, which I have noticed in other books by the author, is the rather upper class tone of the book. Our heroine's grandmother is a Lady Peebles who lives in a mansion, her father is also rich and they have servants and grooms. They even hob-nob with top show jumping stars. There are only 2 classes of people in the book, the riding set who are all rich and from 'the top drawer' and the working class who all seem to comprise of servants, drop their aitches and are expected to be subserviant. It sticks in the craw rather when Jennifer is befriended by an old working class man at The White City, whom she addresses as Barker, disrespectfully dropping the Mr. and treating him as an inferior, despite the fact he is much older than her and going out of his way to help her. She even has him doing her horse for her whilst she is off exploring the place! And this is considered all quite normal by the author. I feel that this sort of thing perpetuates the old criticism that pony books are elitist and have no relation to the reality of the average person. In general this is untrue, but sadly in this case the criticism must be upheld.
I do prefer more down-to-earth settings and feel more sympathetic to struggling poverty stricken heroines than the 'poor little rich girl' figure. The author however has made it possible for us working class readers to sympathise somewhat with Jennifer by giving her the obstacle of over-protective parents standing in the way of the pursuit of her dreams. However as her happiness seems to rely on taking part in a horse show rather than something more serious, such as the prospect of losing her horse, we don't really feel a huge emotional
attachment. Diana Pullein-Thompson in Three Ponies and Shannan does a much better job of portraying the 'poor little rich girl' figure: her heroine's very real unhappiness and loneliness contrasts with Jennifer's childish tantrum when she doesn't get her own way. However one does have to admire Jennifer's pluck in going off and competing on her own, even if everything does seem to go fairly easily for her (she has plenty of money to pay for show entries and accomodation, she just happens to overhear a conversation about a good hotel exactly where she needs to be, etc).
The best part of the story is that of the horse show which is re-created very well. It is also good that the rules of the jumping competition are explained in the story so that non-riders and novices can understand what is going on. The realism is enhanced by plans of the two jumping courses included in the illustrations. Although in general the book scores fairly low on 'Claire's Cliche-o-meter' this last part of the book does drift firmly into cliche territory, with realism going out of the window in favour of a trite ending.
Another downside of the story is that the character of Skipper the pony is not developed at all. We know his colour and that he is a good jumper but he has no personality of his own. Jennifer seems to see him mainly as a means to an end in fulfilling her jumping ambitions, and there is little evidence that she cares much about him. Although in defence this is a show jumping story rather than one that focuses on the rider-pony relationship, it still would have been nice to have had some emotional attachment between Jennifer and Skipper. This lack of attachment also reduces the empathy we have for Jennifer as a character.
It is almost as if the book itself reflects the upper class British attitude of the time, all stiff upper lip, don't show emotion and get on with the business of winning.
All in all, not a classic in the show jumping sub-genre, but even so a fairly enjoyable, undemanding read to wile away a few hours on a cold winter night. There is a sequel, Look Before You Leap, in which Jennifer has left school and has taken up eventing, and I liked White Poles enough to read the sequel if it comes my way, though I wouldn't go out of my way to search it out.
I would award it 2-3 horseshoes.