happy
Pony Trekker
Posts: 50
|
Post by happy on Nov 29, 2008 19:39:21 GMT 1
Hi everyone
I came accross this websit website by chance and I love it.
I used to read lots of pony books as a child and into my teens. It brings back so many memories to see the pictures of them on them on here.
My favourite books were.
Fly by Night Janet Young Rider Horse called September
I have actually forgotton the name of a lot of them and was on here for hours the other day.
I am getting Janet Young Rider for christmas and it sounds silly but its like getting my best friend back after all these years. I read it so much.
What are your favourits or what can you recommend is a good read?
xxx
|
|
|
Post by cally on Nov 30, 2008 0:10:48 GMT 1
Ruby Ferguson's 'Jill' series is The Best, and just about anything by the Pullein-Thompson trio, especially the older books.
WARNING: You Will Become Addicted.
|
|
|
Post by garej on Nov 30, 2008 10:28:23 GMT 1
I agree about the Pullein-Thompson's in fact, I have every single (fiction) horse book by them, and also the Jill series.
Other authors to try are K M Peyton (though some of her stories are not about horses though!) and Caroline Akrill's Eventing series.
Also, Primrose Cumming is a good one, though some of her books are hard to find (and therefore expensive!). Silver Snaffles is a good one to start off with, and it is still in print, so slightly easier on the pocket.
|
|
|
Post by Claire on Nov 30, 2008 13:44:56 GMT 1
Hi happy and welcome to the forum! This post reminds me of one of the forums first ever threads when we only had about 5 members and we were discussing our top 5/top 10 pony books. If anyone wants to read the thread here is the link to it: ponybooks.proboards78.com/index.cgi?board=ponybooks&action=display&thread=38I am glad to see someone else loves A Horse for September which is I think a very underrated book. Some good ones to try if you havent already are the Silver Brumby books by Elyne Mitchell, Catherine Harris books which are to my mind a little like JPT's, or for a more modern read try the Samantha Alexander books, they are pretty good.
|
|
happy
Pony Trekker
Posts: 50
|
Post by happy on Nov 30, 2008 18:03:46 GMT 1
You have all got me really up for reading all those books now.
Thanks for the past thread as well it was great.
You are right sometimes you cant find a reason as to why you love a book.
Just finishing "Prince among ponies" (which i picked up in a charity shop last week) at the moment. I had never read it before and although it is really a childrens book I love the relationship between sara and patrick. A really feel good book.
Went to a book fair today and not one horsey book there can you believe it. One lady told me that they werent that popular ha ha.
Thanks again everyone.
xx
|
|
|
Post by zoe on Nov 30, 2008 22:46:31 GMT 1
Hi happy I agree that pony books are like old friends and I too spend ages on the website looking at front covers to jog my memory. I have a confession; Ibought a couple of pony books from the charity shop the other day and pretended they were for my daughter cos lady at counter thought it strange Iwas so interested in them. welcome to the forum
|
|
|
Post by Claire on Dec 3, 2008 12:53:17 GMT 1
Oops yes I did mean a horse CALLED september, not paying attention to what I was doing! I really love that book and it always bring a lump to my throat!
Konstanze you don't mention Patricia Leitch in your list of favourites. What do you think of her? I love her, especially A Dream of Fair Horses, and the Jinny series and Jump to the Top was read over and over when I was a child.
I totally agree with you on Blind Beauty. As far as I am concerned K M Peyotn couldn't write a poor book if she tried. Even the ones she wrote as teenagers are good and matue beyond her years. Crab the Roan is brilliant.
Great idea about the dustjackets. Maybe you/I should start a thread. We could have best and worst maybe?
If I HAD to pick just one favourite book it would be Pony Club Camp from the Noel and Henry series. It just makes me laugh aloud every time I read it.
|
|
|
Post by susanb on Dec 3, 2008 15:42:28 GMT 1
konstanze....wow!!!....I think you win the award of the most pony books bought in shortest time frame! What a miserable reason for having to do it though....I hope they caught those removal people and removed them from society!
Re Patricia Leitch...I'm so in agreement...I LOVE her stand alones, but didn't like the Jinny's at all....they weren't catching me to begin with, and by the time I got to Summer Riders, that was it for me...the idea of putting a disabled child on a half trained, half wild young horse is just this side of attempted murder...and Jinny's mother was insisting on it as though sharing a horse was akin to "sharing your toys". Yikes!
Last Summer to Ride (Janet, Young Rider) was the first pony book I read by her...it was advertised on the back of The Black Loch in the US edition, which I had picked up because it looked like such a good fantasy novel (and it was!)....when I realized she wrote horse books too, of course I had to start chasing them down as well.
Re my favorites, well, as you suspected, I'm on Jane Bader's board too, so I did just compile a list....when you have to limit yourself to just a few, it does tend to come down to the ones you read over and over and over as a child, so mine are more dominated by American books than some other posters, though with that said, there are several English books in the list, including a tie for first....here's the list
A tie for first: The Secret Horse by Marion Holland and Tall and Proud (original UK title King Sam) by Vian Smith National Velvet by Enid Bagnold (I can't believe this isn't on more people's lists!) The Sweet Running Filly by Pat Johnson and Barbara van Tuyl Dark Sunshine by Dorothy Lyons A Pony for Jean by Joanna Cannan The Crumb by Jean Slaughter Doty The Black Stallion by Walter Farley Big Jump for Robin by Suzanne Wilding Mountain Stallion by Logan Forster King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry
The only book in the list that I didn't read as a child was A Pony for Jean, which I discovered at a local equestrian bookdealer as I was buying/upgrading some favorites from my childhood.....love at first sight, the charming story and the wonderful Anne Bullen illustrations...it's what started me off on the "British Wing" of my horse book library!
|
|
happy
Pony Trekker
Posts: 50
|
Post by happy on Dec 3, 2008 19:28:34 GMT 1
Hi All
It is great you are sharing all your favourites especially if my top 3 are on your top 10 list it means we like similar books and I know which books to start reading first......
You all mention Caroline Akrils (think spelt right) which sound great so I must get them first.
I have this thing where by I must read them in hardback rather than paper back. Silly I guess but I love the smell of old books :-)
I love books where by the children arent blessed with money and they go all out for the love of a pony. When I was growing up we couldnt afford to have a horse for me so I used to spend hours helping up at stables every week just to get free rides. I think that this made me really appreciate the rides I got and looking after horses and I can really relate to these children. I loved fly by night as Ruth just didnt come from a horsey family at all and the girl who lived down the road had everything including her own perfect pony but Ruth perservered with Fly and she came out top. Very inspiring.
Thanks again everyone this website is now on my favourites and I have to keep refering back to it for authors.
xxx
|
|
|
Post by Claire on Dec 3, 2008 21:32:33 GMT 1
Konstanze I am sure you will be starting threads and all sorts of things very soon! In the mean time I will start up a thread for best and worst dustjackets/covers.
|
|
|
Post by susanb on Dec 4, 2008 3:33:09 GMT 1
Hi Konstanze Yes, I'm an American...from Massachusetts, so my riding experience isn't all that different from the average (sadly non-pony owning) English rider...though I did work for one summer in a livery stable that used Western stock saddles, so I did learn to saddle that way (though I couldn't stand them...rode the whole summer bareback, which did really wonderful things for my balance and grip!). Re American books.....grin, yes there are a lot of them out there! Sadly, they're often very hard to get and expensive in hardcover w/dj, as American librarians LOVED horse books and bought them by the truckload...so kids didn't wind up buying their own copies (the book token, so prevalent in all the best English pony stories I've read, didn't exist here....only since the advent of gift cards has that sort of thing been done in bookstores, and it's still not caught on and become as much of a tradition as in the UK). On the upside, most of the titles I posted in my best beloved list are actually not difficult to find or terribly expensive. Big Jump for Robin came out both in hardcover with dj and in an identical picture cover edition, that ususally sell for under $10. It's the middle book of a trilogy, but each is a stand alone...the first and last came out only in hardcover with dj, and are harder to find, but not horribly expensive when you do. The Sweet Running Filly came out only in paperback, and ususally sells for under $5 The Crumb came out in hardcover with dj, identical picture cover, and paperback with revised cover art (I should note that US paperbacks virtually NEVER have revised text...in fact I can't think of any that were revised) - the picture cover edition, wich is the most commonly found, runs between $10 and $15 Dark Sunshine also came out in hardcover with dj, picture cover and paperback with same cover art and in a mass market paperback with revised cover. A nice picture cover runs $15 to $20, but I've seen it go for as low as $10 Mountain Stallion is the only book that is just plain whopping expensive...it's the second book in a quartet, and after about 7 years searching, I still haven't found a copy of the last book...I don't mean I haven't found one I can afford, I mean, literally, I haven't found one that isn't ex-library. Vian Smith was an English author, obviously, but apparently more popular in the US than in his native land! My library had all his books in hardcover, but I owned (at the time, I have them all now!), only the one book that came out in paperback in the US, Tall and Proud, aka King Sam. It's one of his least available titles in the UK, and obviously the most available in the US, running between $5 and $10, but often found for less in ebay lots of horse books. I've pics of them in photobucket....will see if I can't remember how to post them at the end....only just learned how to use photobucket! Re Joanna Cannan....I've loved all her books, and have the lot, though my copy of London Pride is tatty ex-library with no dj...some day, I dream! I also loved I Wrote a Pony Book (how cool that you wrote your own!) and also Gaze at the Moon......it's just that when it comes to having to pick just one to put in a list, the Anne Bullen illustrations, plus the fact that it was the first I read, push A Pony for Jean over the top for me. Erm...a bit of bad news on Caroline Akrill.....I hate to add to your collecting woes, but Flying Changes did come out in hardcover...from Arlington books in 1985..it was the first book of hers that I bought, from the same Cambridge Massachusetts seller I got A Pony for Jean from, in fact...it was on her recommendation I tried it, and of course loved Akrill right away.....though The Eventing Trilogy and the Star Trilogy are still my favorites....the only one I still haven't aquired is Not Quite a Horsewoman. (On the upside, I just checked abebooks, and there's a copy listed in fine condition/fine dj for a whopping £ 4.00 Hey, the photobucket thing worked! One note on the pictures....Tall and Proud and The Secret Horse are my beloved tatty paperbacks from youth...like you, I did buy great hardcovers with dustjackets, but then couldn't bring myself to let go of the paperbacks Since favorites are so heavily dependant on nostalgia, I decided to post the pics of them as I read them first!
|
|
|
Post by fizz on Dec 4, 2008 9:05:18 GMT 1
I'm glad someone out there doesn't like the Jinny books. I found it hard to suspend disbelief as well, I have never enjoyed fantasy books and like Konztanze I wanted books with a sense of some reality, Also I never warmed to Jinny's character.
Of all Leitch's books, Janet Young Rider seemed the most real to me, but I read all of them as an adult, maybe if I'd read the Jinny series at 12 I'd have enjoyed them more.
|
|
|
Post by Claire on Dec 4, 2008 12:59:23 GMT 1
I loved Janet Young Rider or A Horse for the Holidays as I always knew it by, as I had it in the Armada pb edition. I actually wasnt really into the Jinny books as a child but read them all as an adult and enjoyed them. But then I do like fantasy. For that reason I also loved The Black Loch too.
But hey it would be boring if we all liked/disliked the same books. I must admit I have a tendency to like books which others dislike, such as the Georgie and Spot books by Mary Gervaise and the 3 Jays series, tho I wouldnt put them in my favourites.
|
|
|
Post by susanb on Dec 4, 2008 16:33:28 GMT 1
Hi Konstanze,
Grin...sorry to be providing temptation! I know what you mean, I keep seeing new books on these forums and wanting them (actually, I did treat myself to a book from Claire for Christmas, though I was good, and it wasn't an expensive one). I am still in Massachusetts, but thanks to the internet, it doesn't stop me from talking books with people everywhere!
I'm on abebooks forum as well, where I'm Susan in Boston, as I love other books besides pony books, though the pony books are the main part of my collection. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it!) there are a lot of English members on abebooks too, so now I'm hooked into Pamela Brown's theatre books (ouch!) and W.E. Johns Worrals books (double ouch...but what a great character!)
I know what you mean about wanting the whole series...I'm the same way, and it can get prohibitive....I've not paid £250.00 for anything yet though! The other Robin books are Dream Pony for Robin and Harlequin Horse, and though hard to find, they're not in any way in that price range...I think I paid about $60 (which works out to about £42 right now) for Robin, and it's a a hardcover with dj, signed and dedicated by the author.
The Logan Forster series is Desert Storm, Mountain Stallion, Tamarlane and Revenge, in that order. Desert Storm is relatively easy to find and inexpensive, and in fact came out in German (Sturmwolke), so if you're still fluent, I bet you could pick that up for a song. Actually, come to think of it, a lot of American (and British) horse books were published in German, so you could do very, very well there....check abebooks, search by author and narrow the country to Germany and see what pops up....I bet the postage would be less pricey too (I know what you mean re abe.....the postage can be more than the book).
Probably the most expensive titles I own are Dorothy Lyons early books that never made it into picture cover or paperback (Silver Birch, Midnight Moon, Java Jive, Smoke Rings) and the Nancy Caffrey books that Paul Brown illustrated (Show Pony, Horse Haven)...the Lyons books typically run about $200 (£135), and I've seen the Caffrey/Brown books reach $450 (£303), but that's ridiculous (I paid only $150 each, working out to about £102). I can be very, very patient and persistent when it comes to getting the book I want at a reasonable price, though sometimes you do just have to bite the bullet and fork over the big bucks (or pounds, as the case may be!) if a title is just terribly in demand and scarce.
Re library books...generally speaking, collector shun them, but if a book is particularly scarce and hard to find, even an ex-library copy can retain some value....for someone collecting for the pure pleasure of reading, who hasn't been bitten by the evil, obsessive, collector bug, ex-library copies can be a great way to expand a collection quickly, at a more manageable cost, in addition to which you give a good home to a great book!
Re all American's riding Western...grin, I guess people who think that haven't watched the last two Olympic Games ;-) Seriously though, it's varied across the country....you don't see much Western riding on the East Coast, it's all English...nobody here rides herd on stock, so what's the point? I found riding a Western saddle was like being deaf....there's SO much saddle between you and the horse you might as well be on a carousel horse for all you can feel of the horse's movement. That said, I did a trail ride a few years back on Martha's Vineyard (trail ride rentals are the exception to the English saddle rule, non-riders who are often the customers feel more secure with a great big horn to grab), and on finding that I had experiance, and a hatred of stock saddles, they kindly put me on a pony that had a close contact stock saddle, which was dramatically better....almost as good as an English saddle.
|
|
|
Post by susanb on Dec 4, 2008 17:54:03 GMT 1
Grin....I refuse to take responsibility for anyone else's addiction...lol....I don't even take responsibility for my own!
Re American pony books (or horse books, as they're generally called here, regardless of whether the equine in question is a pony or a horse, as English books are always pony, again regardless of the size of the four footed protagonist!), feel free to ask away.
I posted this list on the Jane Badger forum a while back....kind of a "if you were teaching a course in pony/horse books, what would the syllabus look like?"...I did one for American books, hoping that everyone else would chime in with a English, Australian, etc, "course" list, but alas, not many played (so few geeks and nerds around when you need them).
My "required reading" list for a class in American pony books...except for the trio in "classics", it would be "choose one from the sub-genre"....a couple are two-(or more)-for-ones, and fit in more than one sub-genre.
The Classics....books that are pretty much givens, as well as being excellent reads:
The Black Stallion by Walter Farley Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
Not everything is rosy....the dark side of the horse world:
The Crumb by Jean Slaughter Doty The Monday Horses by Jean Slaughter Doty Last Junior Year by Barbara Morgenroth
The world doesn't end at the paddock gate....stories that have fully developed characters, including family and friends, as well as heroines with outside interests:
Dark Sunshine by Dorothy Lyons Saddles for Breakfast by Janet Randall
Classic girl and pony showing/hunting sagas:
Cammie's Choice by Jane McIlvaine Big Jump for Robin by Suzanne Wilding Horsepower by Patsey Gray
On the ranch:
Capture of the Golden Stallion by Rutherford Montgomery Arabian Cow Horse by John Richard Young Fury of Broken Wheel Ranch by Albert G. Miller
Different cultures:
Desert Storm by Logan Forster (Apache) Bright Spurs by Armine von Tempski (Hawaiian)
It's a mystery!
Sweet Running Filly by Pat Johnson and Barbara van Tuyl
Never stop learning! Good horsemanship novels:
The Horsemasters by Don Stanford Working Trot by Jessie Haas Star Crossed Stallion's Big Chance by Patrick Lawson
Historic interest:
King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade by Diane Lee Wilson
Fantasy:
Mig o' the Moor by Nancy Caffrey
Horses as therapy:
Show Ring Rogue by Patsey Gray Dark Sunshine by Dorothy Lyons
Rescue me! Ponies/Horses in Distress:
The Secret Horse by Marion Holland The Sweet Running Filly by Pat Johnson and Barbara van Tuyl
Unusual riding disciplines...probably not in real life, but less commonly found in children's fiction:
Red Ember by Dorothy Lyons - polo Dark Sunshine by Dorothy Lyons - endurance Working Trot by Jessie Haas - dressage Star Crossed Stallion's Big Chance by Patrick Lawson - dressage Olympic Horseman by John Richard Young - Olympic eventing
In a class by itself (because it didn't fit anywhere else)...a book as much about offbeat family as horses, but well worth the (optional) read:
The Dark Horse of Woodfield by Florence Hightower
Whew! Looks like a long list! But, choosing only one from each sub-genre, it would be a max of 15, fewer if you picked one book that counted multiple times.
|
|
|
Post by Claire on Dec 4, 2008 19:29:17 GMT 1
Susan love the idea of a syllabus for a horsy literature course - now thats one course I wouldnt mind doing lesson plans for! I am itching to think of which books I would have on it. But will have to leave it for later as must do some housework before everything is buried in a pile of dust!
|
|