About the author
William Pène du Bois (1916–1993) was born in the United States, and studied art in France. He had his first book, Elizabeth the Cow Ghost, published at the age of 19, and had five more titles published before the outbreak of World War II. During the war, he was a correspondent for the magazine Yank. Many of his children’s books had a humorous slant; he wrote the Otto series about a large otterhound, and his two horse books are amusing takes on detective fiction. He won the Newbery Medal in 1948 for Twenty One Red Balloons.
Finding the books
Easy to find.
Links and sources
William Pène du Bois on the Encyclopaedia Britannica
William Pène du Bois on Wikipedia
Terri Wear: Horse Stories: An Annotated Bibliography
Bibliography (horse books only)
The Great Geppy
Viking Press, New York, 1940, 92 pp, illus the author
Reprinted several times
Robert Hale, London, 1942
The Bott Brothers’ Three Ring Circus seems to be experiencing a rash of thefts at night, and
so the detective agency sends Sausage, a red and white striped talking horse, to solve the
case.
The Horse in the Camel Suit
Harper & Row, New York, 1967, 79 pp, illus the author
When a strange parade comes to town, a boy detective sets out to solve the mystery.
