Favourite childhood horse books/novels

My mum found me a book that she thought i would like in a charity shop for 50p which was The Silver Brumby Stories Volume 1 - The Silver Brumby, Silver Brumby's Daughter and Silver Brumbies of the South. I got hooked and posted an ad in a newspaper searching for them and was surprised to get a few copies sent to me :)
I got Silver Brumby Stories Volume 2 - Silver Brumby Kingdom, Silver Brumby Whirlwind and Son of the Whirlwind.
I also have a double of Silver Brumby Kingdom and im looking for all the other Elyne Mitchell brumby books :)
 
When I was a young girl a friend of my mother's owned a second hand book shop, he gave my mother a huge box full of horse books for me, these are the ones I remember reading over and over again all through my childhood. I have had to google the authors of course!

Summer Pony-Jean Slaughter Doty
The Monday Horses-Jean Slaughter Doty
Season of Ponies-Zilpha Keathley Snyder?
Misty of Chincoteague
Stormy Misty's Foal
Black Gold
King of the Wind
Born to Trot
Sea Star
(all by Marguerite Henry)
All the Black Stallion Books by Walt Farley
Fly-By-Night
The Team
(both by KM Peyton-I would love to read The Flambards books by the same author-never have yet)
Any of the Blaze books by CW ANderson
Vicki and the Bay Mare and Vicky and the Black Horse (?) by Sam Savitt
Tipperary-Bucking Horse-By P Hennessey
Doodlebug-Irene Brady
Indian Paint-Glen Balch
Hold the Rein Free-Judy Van der Veer
Year of the Horse-Diana Walker
and I think I read at least one about a racing filly called Sunbonnet but I really can't remember the name or author

I enjoyed that trip down memory lane!
 
Riding with Reka
Black Beauty
Flicka (the bit when the wolves chase the horses sticks in the memory)


I collect old horse books as well favourites are Horse Lovers,Silver Eagles
Lets Go Riding/Hunting and Lets Meet Again. Loads more mostly from the 30s
Melka and Melka in England.
 
old books from the 30s? If I came to your house I would never leave the bookshelf alone! I am always getting in to trouble with the OH at National Trust houses for spending too long trying to see what books they have in the libraries!
 
The Jill books, Fly by Night (and Toadhill Flax, a fab showname!) and The Black (and Red) Stallion series.
As a horseless youngster I always stood around at shows waiting for someone to fall off, or have a strop and their parents let me ride their pony as their daughter was too ungrateful. It never happened though. Ah, the innocent days of hopeful, wishing youth...
There was a book I read about a girl who ran away from home and joined the circus and she had a piebald... I think?? Anyone remember it?
 
Monica Edwards books are wonderful - you can tell that she was writing about places she knew, and although they weren't completely 'pony', there's plenty of horse stuff along with farming, wildlife, family stuff etc.

I loved the same as the rest of you - particularly the Noel and Henry excitement in the Pulleon Thompson novels. The Silver Brumby books were my escape when I was very young, still ahve them (still have all my pony books, and my Sindy horse, and my Pippa pony - I'm 42!)
 
Super thread.

I recently bought a first edition of Three Ponies and Shannon for £2.50. BARGAIN! My faves are:

Three Ponies and Shannon (Christina Carr, 3 ponies, SOlo, Symphony, and Serenade, she is given a dog called Shannon and attends a riding club camp)

A Pony To School (Christina Carr and Augusta Thorneydyke given a skewbald to school for a local farmer, happy endings all round after a rather tragic pony death from tetanus)

The First Rosette, The Secound Mount, Three To Ride (stories of David and Pat, from meeting on the hunting field as chidlren to training to ride for the England team)

Jump to to the Stars, The Difficult Summer, The Perfect Horse (adventures of Roberta Morton and her chetnut Anglo Arab Shelta, from being at school and riding at Guys riding school, to buying a Perfect horse for cousin Ellen and riding it at Badminton) n.b. I always wanted a large dun like Minos, he sounded so safe compared to the mad TBs I had at the time!

The Eventing trilogy by Caroline Akrill (Eventers Dream, Ticket To Ride, Hoof in the Door)

The Showing trilogy by Caroline Akrill (Caroline Canters Home, I;d Rather Not Gallop, If I could Ride)

I have all of these books and read them frequently, a super escape from modern life. I also love the Jill books, so innocent, and love that she was going to compete in the Under 14 jumping at Chatton Show for at least four books worth, even though it was her last chance to do so!
 
gonehunting said:
Google Monica Edwards and you will find a wonderful publisher who is re issuing them all in unabridged paperback, many of the old Armada paperbacks were abridged. Also a society which has issued books about her. An author who was such a formative influence, though sadly I was never able to go smuggling or be a White Rider! The one I could never find was called the Midnight Horse, I eventually found it in the middle of a second hand book of pony stories. I was sorry to hear of the fate of the real Meryon perhaps that's why the last of the Romney Marsh books is so serious. Books for a desert island, all my old pony books!
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Agree with you, she is still one of my favourite authors and her stories were made even better by being set in real places that I could go to when I could pester my Dad for a day out. Many a time I've been to the Punchbowl and always hoped I'd met Roger and Lyndsey around the corner; the same could be said for Rye too; they were magical places to me and all brought to life by her.
I haven't heard about the real Meryon (do you ever hear anyone with that name, lol?), what happened to him or was it the same as in the book Blowing In The Wind? Very sad if so.
 
I loved all the Pullein Thompson books, the Jill books, Flicka, Silver Brumby, Green Grass of Wyoming, Black Stallion. Also Misty of Chincoteague, and sequels, and King of the Wind. I particularly liked this last one, as it was based on fact - one of the three founding stallions of the modern Thoroughbred. I kept them all for years, and then dug them out for my daughter - might read them again myself!
 
My favourite childhood book was definately Black Beauty. Easily watch the film now because "my neice wants to!" ;) I'm 24 so the other books I read were horses of malf moon ranch and the heartland books - still got them now!

Favourite horse book now would be Horse Whisperer and Jilly Cooper's Polo :)
 
Oh, just remembered another favourite, Monica Dickens World's End series, about a ramshackle family of kids, I think the parents went sailing around the world and left the kids to survive somehow... very good, you were drawn into the story. I've just checked, and they're all on Amazon from 1p!

I can second Lucy Rees Wild Pony, a proper teenage pony book which has you shedding a tear too.
 
I loed the Eventers trilogy by Caroline Akrill, the Jill books, Jinny, all the spin offs from black beauty where his descendents were featured. I wanted a Minos too, he was the perfect horse! Also the Riders books by Samantha Alexander with the horse called Barney, I think? There was also a book about a girl who won her pony Misty in a magazine competition where she had to write in about why she'd be the perfect owner for the horse, then had to ride it across country to find grazing for it. The name escapes me now though!
 
gemin1eye said:
There was also a book about a girl who won her pony Misty in a magazine competition where she had to write in about why she'd be the perfect owner for the horse, then had to ride it across country to find grazing for it. The name escapes me now though!
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Jackie Won a Pony, which spawned all of the subsequent Jackie books. She had a very annoying cousin called Babs.
 
Little list for Skint1
Exmoor Ben
A Hunting we will Go
The Young Rider
Foxhunting from The Times
Mount and Man
Horse and Pencil
Galloping Shoes
The Perfect Hunter and Saddle Horse
Broncho
Scattered Scarlet
Getting to Know your pony
In the Pink
The Silver Horn
Horse Sense and Sensibility
Country Sense and Common Sense
The Chestnut Filly
Fortunes Foal
White Winter
 
I've been wracking my brains for ages trying to remember the title of a book I read as a kid. I've googled alsorts to no avail. I remember there being a girl and 2 liver chestnut horses - one was a gelding and the other was a mare. It started my obsession with liver chestnuts.

I remember reading loads of different horsey books and they influenced what we got upto on our ponies. We all camped out at the farm one night and went for a midnight ride - I'm sure that was the result of reading a novel. Those were the days :D Pharlap was one of my favourite films as well. I spent many a time wrapping my stirrup leathers around the stirrups to get them to jockey length and bomb off round the fields without a care in the world lol
 
One thing I noticed reading the older books is that the main character is usually a boy or young man which is quite different from the modern books.
 
My favourite was the Jackie & Misty books-anyone remember those?? I always wanted to be Jackie & had an imaginary horse called Misty lol :o :D
Did get into the saddle club books at one point but they started going a bit off topic for me towards the later books.
 
What a fabulous thread. Reading all the replies I've seen some books that I had completely forgotten I had years ago (foolishly gave all my "horsey" books away to a friend's daughter :))

My all-time favourite was Wish for a Pony - oh, how I wanted to be Tamzin Grey. I was given another copy of it by a friend a couple of years ago and still read it on a regular basis. I'm thrilled to see that Monica Edwards books are being re-issued, I foresee some purchases . . . . .
 
My favourite ever pony book was I Wanted a Pony by one of the Pullein-Thompson sisters it was about a girl called Augusta and her pony Daybreak. Series wise I loved the Follyfoot books.

I also loved the Jill, Flicka, Silver Brumby, Black Stallion, Shanith & Jinny and the Polly series' as well as anything written by the P-T sisters and the classics like Black beauty, National velvet etc.

These days my favourite horse books are Polo by Jilly Cooper or Into the Pink by Molly Watson although I do re-read my pony books :D
 
I used to love the Jill books, Shantih and Jinny, and the stories by the Pullen-Thompson sisters.
I still have them all somewhere!
 
I loved the Jill books, but had loads of others and have since started collecting some older ones too.

Jane Badger books is fab for this sort of thing.

Also loved the silver brumby books, my friend flicka, the red pony (sob....)
Moorland Mousie, silver snaffles........the list is endless!
 
Just reading back, how could I forget 'I'd rather not gallop' that became a catchphrase of mine and a friends whenever we saw someone having 'difficulty'

Older books

The Joker and Jerry
The wednessday pony
Pat and her polo pony
brownie (? I thnk)
Exmoor lass
Dinah the dartmoor
ooh having just moved house most of them are packed, must get them out and have a look!
 
My favourites, in no particular order (I read a LOT as a child) ...

* Black Beauty - Anna Sewell
* The Swallow books - KM Peyton
* The Jinny and Shantih series - Patricia Leitch
* Almost all the Pullein-Thompson sisters books, especially Phantom Horse
* A Hoof in the Door, Ticket to Ride and Eventer's Dream - Caroline Akrill
* Sheltie!
* The Saddle Club - Bonnie Bryant
* The Red Pony - John Steinbeck
* The Enchanted Pony - Magdalen Nabb

My ABSOLUTE favourite is Blind Beauty by KM Peyton, even reading it now it has me in tears, if anyone hasn't read it I can't recommend it enough, it's a cracking story!
 
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Trudyt76 said:
I've been wracking my brains for ages trying to remember the title of a book I read as a kid. I've googled alsorts to no avail. I remember there being a girl and 2 liver chestnut horses - one was a gelding and the other was a mare. It started my obsession with liver chestnuts.

I remember reading loads of different horsey books and they influenced what we got upto on our ponies. We all camped out at the farm one night and went for a midnight ride - I'm sure that was the result of reading a novel. Those were the days :D Pharlap was one of my favourite films as well. I spent many a time wrapping my stirrup leathers around the stirrups to get them to jockey length and bomb off round the fields without a care in the world lol
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I think the book you mean with the liver chestnuts might be "Friends Must Part" by either the Pullien THompsons 0r the mother Joanna Cannon were the ponys called Brandysnap and Gingersnap and the girl had an old pony that was PTS called Peppermint?
 
jesstickle said:
I loved the Jill books. Anyone remember them. With Black boy and Rapide?

O and books by the Pullein-Thompson sisters too :)
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The Jill books were my favourite. I re-read them all a few years ago and they were just as good! There were loads of others I enjoyed reading but they just stood out for me. I also liked the Jinny and Shantih books.
Thanks for reminding me about 'I wanted a pony' by one of the Pullein-Thompsons. I might have to have a look on ebay now!
 
tedster said:
I think the book you mean with the liver chestnuts might be "Friends Must Part" by either the Pullien THompsons 0r the mother Joanna Cannon were the ponys called Brandysnap and Gingersnap and the girl had an old pony that was PTS called Peppermint?
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OMG thankyou so much. I remember the names Brandysnap and Gingersnap. I've been searching for this book for ages. I've googled allsorts lol :D:D:D
 
I love this thread!!

I have just started re-buying all of the Jill books and P-T sister ones for me to re-read and for my 7 year old daughter to read (after me he he he!!) I spent my childhood scouring the paper back exchange and charity shops for pony books, and my granny volunteered for the Sue Ryder shop so used to find me some gems. I had so many and i guess they were thrown out or car booted when i left home, which is such as shame, but i have made it my mission to collect them all again for my little girl.

I have to say, I have bought her lots of modern pony books and not one compares to the old ones. The stories are rubbish and so sugar coated, I love the fact that the old books tell of ponies being PTS, of accidents, disapointements, hard work and good manners. They teach to put your pony first and that you are not always going to win.

so thanks to good old Ebay i am eagerly awaiting todays post for the first two books in my new collection, Jills Gymkhana and Jill has 2 ponies. Can anyone tell me the author of the Jill and Shantih books? I can't remember her name......

who has read First Pony by Patricia Leitch? That is the one book i still have from my old collection, my daughter is reading it now.
 
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