About the author
Ponies for Children is an odd book: it’s part of a small sub-set of pony books that attempted to combine a story with instruction, and I think it’s quite possibly one of the worst of them. The story is bizarre – the man you find carrying a gun in your greenhouse is of course actually a kindly Professor, and that’s just the start. The pony book the Bynner father is apparently writing is dry as dust. The one small flicker of light on the horizon is that if all of the finished work is quoted in the book, it is blessedly short. This author only wrote one pony book, as far as I’m aware.
Finding the book
This is very easy to find both with and without dustjacket.
Links and sources
Many thanks to Amanda for the picture.
Bibliography (pony books only)
Ponies for Children
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962
“The Bynner family loved ponies, and Mr. Bynner was writing a book all about Ponies for Children, and this was the centre of life at Stretton House. That is, until the day when the strange old man holding a gun was found in the greenhouse among the vines. But although he carried a deadly looking revolver, the Professor turnedout to the the kindest and most humble of people. He stayed on at Stretton House to meet Nandi and her brother; the Vicarage Twins (who were also pony experts); and Rusk, the bearded T.V. Producer. By the endof the book they were all experts on ponies and knew all about buying and feeding, training and illnesses – Indeed everything any boy and girl should or could know about ponies for children.”
Many thanks to Amanda Dolby for the picture.
