The blog.
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The pony book – how it all began
Animals, animals Animal books there were in plenty in the 1800s, all of them animals telling their own story. There were cats, dogs, the occasional pony, and donkeys, and then in 1877 came Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty. Black Beauty told the world what it was like to be a working horse in Victorian Britain. It was…
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Did men write pony books?
This post originally appeared on my old blog. I had completely forgotten I had written it until I was searching for information on Antonio Fachiri. I read it, and thought, oh, that’s not too bad, is it? So here it is again. Recently I’ve been thinking about male authors who write horse and pony books…
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The stables of Lamport Hall
2023 wasn’t the best year I’ve had for visiting stables, or writing about them. This piece I’ve had brimming away since 2022, but here it is at last. Lamport Hall in Northamptonshire is now run by the Lamport Hall Preservation Trust, and it’s very well worth visiting. The house itself is beautiful, as are the…
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K M Peyton: the girls, the horses, the passion
K M Peyton, MBE, died this week at the age of 94. She won the Carnegie medal for The Edge of the Cloud, and in over forty horse books, captured completely that passionate obsession girls have for the horse. Her characters were Romans, Victorians, Edwardians and thoroughly modern day. What they shared was a clear-sighted…
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The pony book gift guide 2023
What do you get the pony book fan in your life, when you want to focus on independent authors and makers? Here are some ideas. Cressida Burton First up is the Ravensbay School series by Cressida Burton. The books are set at a boarding school with riding on the curriculum, and it’s a brilliant choice…
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How to put off getting back on a horse
I could do a solid hundred pages on how I put off getting back to riding again, because I have a fertile brain and I put it to good use finding excuse after excuse after excuse for why I wasn’t riding again. I knew the real reason I didn’t was because I was scared stiff,…
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Facing the fear: coming back to riding
I started riding when I was about seven. I’d been horse mad ever since I realised what a horse was, and one day Mum took me and my sister up to a local stable. Would we, she asked, like to have riding lessons. Would we! I loved it from the very first lesson. I was…
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What to call your pony book
Have you written a pony book? Writing a book is one thing, but thinking of a title for it is quite another. Do you tell the reader exactly what they’re going to get, or do you hint at it? Publishers in the past worked on the fair assumption that if you were looking for a…
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Victoria Eveleigh: my horses
The horses in my stories, and how they got there Welcome to today’s guest blogger, author Victoria Eveleigh. Victoria is one of my favourite modern pony book authors. I first discovered her when she self-published her first stories about Katy and her Exmoor pony, and I’ve loved everything she’s written since. Victoria is an author…
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The big Jill quiz
Bored? Think you know Ruby Ferguson’s Jill books? Try this quiz.