Eleanor F Brown

Eleanor Frances Brown (1908- )  was born in Spokane, Washington, and graduated from the University of Washington.  She taught English, and then became head librarian at Deschutes County Library in Bend, Oregon.  She wrote several books on librarianship and libraries:  Bibliotherapy and its Widening Applications, Bookmobiles and Bookmobile Service, Cutting Library Costs, Library Service to the Disadvantaged and Modern Branch Libraries amongst them.

She said her three hobbies were horses, books and photography, in exactly that order! - she owned her own horses, and also wrote a column for American Horseman and Popular Horseman. A Horse for Peter was a runner up in the Ford Foundation Award Contest.  This book has a sequel: The Colt from Heaven Hills, in which Peter has to learn that putting a horse’s needs before his own desires sometimes has to be done.

Many thanks to Lisa Catz and Alison MacCallum for all their help with this section.

Finding the Books:  A Horse for Peter, The Colt from Horse Heaven Hills and Golden Lady all tend to be expensive.  Wendy Wanted a Pony and Mountain Palomino are very difficult to find.  None of the books were published in the UK.

Sources and Links:

Dustjackets of the author’s books

Terri A. Wear:  Horse Stories, an Annotated Bibilography, Scarecrow Press, 1987

Bibliography - horse books only

A Horse for Peter

Messner, New York, 1950, illus Pers Crowell, 128 pp.

Reprinted 1952

Evening Star is a Tennessee Walking horse:  utterly useless as a show horse unless Peter Morgan was
watching him.  They had become friends after Peter’s long convalescence from an injury which left him in a
wheelchair.  He would wheel his chair down to watch the horses and draw them.  When the horse’s owner
realises he only performs if Peter is watching, he decides to sell him.  Then one of Peter’s drawings wins
him a scholarship, and Peter’s friends plan a special surprise for him.

Wendy Wanted a Pony

Messner, 1951, illus Pers Crowell, 144 pp.

Wendy is desperate for a pony, and nags her family for one, despite knowing they are saving to buy a farm.
Then Wendy hears about a raffle for a pony at a local fair, and does something she knows she shouldn’t.

The Colt from Horse Heaven Hills

Messner, New York, 1956, illus Pers Crowell, 192 pp.

Peter is at a stockyard, and sees a black horse he knows will be butchered unless he can persuade his
father to buy it.  Peter thinks he will break the horse himself, but Charcoal causes terrible trouble between
Peter and his father.  Peter is not supposed to jump because of his old injury, but does: Charcoal is a born
jumper, and Peter gradually has to accept what is best for the horse is not necessarily what he, Peter,
wants to do.

Mountain Palomino

Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, New York, 1956, illus Patricia Palmer, 185 pp.

Jerry is an outdoor boy; and then Lance comes to stay for a year.  Jerry is expected to share everything with
the city boy, even his horse.

Golden Lady, the Story of an American Show Horse

Howell, Soskin, New York,1946, 252 pp.

Non fiction.

Peter

A Horse Called Peter

The Colt from Heaven Hills