Hans Baumann was born in Amberg, Upper Palatinate, and worked as a teacher in Bavaria. He started his literary career writing poems, some of which he set to music. Before the war, he wrote plays which were produced in the State Theatre, Gerlin and the Burg Theatre Vienna. He servied at the Russion front during the war, and was taken prisoner in France. He continued to write after the war, while he worked as a labourer, and wrote several widely translated books for children.
Finding the book: reasonably easy to find, and doesn’t generally cost a fortune.
Source:
dustjacket of Jackie the Pit Pony
Jackie the Pit Pony
Originally published as Hänschen in der Grübe, Ensslin & Laiblin
Verlag, Reutlingen
Oxford University Press, London, 1958, illus Ulrik Schramm
Jackie is a pony from the Steppes: freedom means everything to him, and he refuses
to be tamed by the
farmer who owns him. So, they sell him to a man who owns a mine.
Although he likes the mine owner’s
daughter, he rebels again when he is set to work,
but at least he realises there are other things in life
besides the sun.