About the author
Ann Matthews Martin (b.1955) was born in Princeton and educated at Smith College. She had a patient mother who would write down her stories as Ann dictated them – she was storytelling before she was old enough to write. She started her career as a teacher, and then edited children’s books before writing full time. Her best known series is The Babysitters, which numbers 131 titles, plus numerous spin offs. There are 122 titles in the spin off Babysitter Little Sister series. The series were phenomenally popular both in the UK and USA, and unsurprisingly considering their length and the need for different subject matter, some of them included horses. Ghost writers were used for some of the books (Ann M Martin wrote the first 35 Babysitters) so it’s quite possible that other authors were responsible for the series horse books listed here.
Ann M Martin has now stopped writing Babysitters books. She won the Newbery Honor medal for A Corner of the Universe.
Finding the books
Easy to find.
Links and sources
Terri Wear: Horse Stories: An Annotated Bibliography
Ann M Martin at Scholastic
The Babysitters’ Club – Wikipedia
Bibliography (horse books only)
Me and Katie (the Pest)
Holiday House, New York, 1985, 152 pp, illus Blanche Sims
Scholastic, New York, 1987, 1990
Wendy’s sister Katie does everything, but everything, better than she does. Wendy doesn’t like this, and she decides to have a go at the one thing she knows Katie’s scared of: riding. However, no sooner does she do this, than Katie says she wants to learn to ride too.
Mallory and the Dream Horse
Scholastic, New York,1992
Hippo, London, 1994, 150 pp.
Mallory has that horse dream so many girls do; she longs to be able to ride. One day, she gets her wish. She is going to have riding lessons. She’s overjoyed, but she finds that once she’s started riding, maybe the dream’s
better than the reality.
Karen’s Pony
Little Apple, New York, 1995, 99 pp, illus Susan Tang
There is an “everything must go” sale locally, and one of the things that has to go is a pony. Karen buys him, but then has to work out how to keep him.
Karen’s Pony Camp
Scholastic, New York, 1997
Pony Camp should be wonderful, but it isn’t. Nancy’s afraid, the only thing Hannie wants to do is ride, and Karen is teased by some of the older children.
Karen’s Unicorn
Scholastic, New York, 1997, 104 pp.
Are unicorns real? Karen sees a circus poster advertising a real, live unicorn. Karen thinks the unicorn will grant her wishes, but she’s alone; none of her classmates believe the unicorn is real.
