Category: Pony books
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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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Short story collections (UK)
The books There are a lot of collections of short stories out there. They were convenient presents for those who had a pony-mad person to buy for, but who didn’t know what they liked. The books could be put together easily if you simply went for extracts, dressing the book up further by getting a…
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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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The big Jill quiz
Bored? Think you know Ruby Ferguson’s Jill books? Try this quiz.
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Thelwell and the ponies who plot
Norman Thelwell was probably best known for his ponies. He was the illustrator of many pony-mad children’s childhoods: not the lovely dream of a matchless grey swishing round the show ring, festooned with rosettes, but the foul tempered pony determined not to be caught and entirely deaf to any suggestion that it be schooled. Much…
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Caroline Akrill on Courses for Horses – the Return of the Fanes
It’s been thirty years, but the fourth and final part of the Eventers’ series – Courses for Horses – is now out. Here Caroline talks about what it was like to take Elaine and the Fanes on their latest journey. *** How did you get into writing the original Eventing series? I had written the…
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Writing a Pony Book: the Rules
Ever felt you would like to write a pony book? After a lifetime reading pony books, I have spotted the odd thing or two along the way I think prospective authors really should know before they start. And finally….. always remember the morally uplifting effect of a pony: someone in your book should be improved by contact…
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Was Jill’s pony black or piebald?
And what was his name? When Jill fans get together, there is one topic that always exercises them. Was Jill’s pony, Black Boy, black, or was he piebald, and was his name Black Boy or Danny Boy? The answer is ‘both’, and that it depends on what edition of the books you read. The original…
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The Jill books ride again
One of the questions I used to get asked quite often as a publisher of classic pony books was, ‘Why aren’t the Jill books available?’ The last time the Jill books were in print was when Fidra Books managed to license the rights in the 2010s, and printed the first few of the series. And…
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Pony Tales and Puffin Books III
Eleanor Graham retired as editor of Puffin Books in 1961. Her place was taken, briefly, by Margaret Clark (who was responsible for publishing Tolkein’s The Hobbit, a book of which Eleanor Graham had had a dim opinion). Although Margaret Clark had been promised the Puffin editorship, she was shunted sideways, as Allen Lane, Penguin founder, met…