New Year Reviews

-
A very belated Happy New Year: my resolution this year is to try and get down the books to be reviewed pile. I think the only way I am going to manage this is to review several books at a time, and not go on at quite my usual length.

So, here are the first reviews of this year:

Diane Lee Wilson: Firehorse
Margaret McElderry Books, 2006, £9.90 (hb), July 2010 £5.05 (pb)

Diane Lee Wilson writes historical horse books, and does it very well. Like her earlier novel, I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade, Firehorse has a feisty heroine pushing the boundaries of what is expected of women. Rachel is forced to move to Boston from Wesleydale, Illinois, which is the American equivalent of moving to London from Piddletrenthide. Rachel moves, but her horse Peaches does not move with her. Life in Boston is cloistered, smelly and seemingly completely without hope, until Rachel meets the firehorse of the title: The Governor's Girl, who has been terribly burned in a fire. Rachel decides to try and save the horse, but has her work cut out. Not only are the horse's injuries terrible (this is not a book to read if you are squeamish) but she has a fearsome temper. The horse is gradually nursed back to health, which fuels Rachel's desire is to become a vet. Not only society, but Rachel's father, are vehemently against the idea, and Rachel's struggle to fulfil her dream is even harder than that to cure her horse.

The book provides a fascinating insight into the beginnings of feminism in America, as well as the workings of the fire service and the Great Fire of Boston itself. I had heard nothing about this at all (my own great fires being strictly of the London variety) and if you like lots of historical background, a rattling good story and believable characters, try this book. It's out later this year in paperback, but is still available in hardback.



Kate Thompson: Annan Water
Bodley Head, London, 2004, £9.89 (hb), £5.39 (pb)

The second book in this section of reviews is Kate Thompson's Annan Water. There's an attractive tension to the author of the horsy novel in the situation of the child of horse dealing parents; constantly used to improve and show off horses, and constantly finding them sold on, however keen on them they are. K M Peyton famously used this tension in Fly-by-Night, and Kate Thompson's hero, Michael, is another child of dealing parents. His sister has been killed by a pony she was bringing on, and Michael lives in a world which is emotionally barren. His parents have flung themselves even further into their dealing business, and Michael thinks them no longer a family, just a business. Michael hates school and the only faint light on his horizon is the girl Annie.

It seems as if the relationship between the two of them will lead them both out of their bleak worlds, but nothing is simple in this novel. The relationship is tightly written, and the action draws you in, but this is ultimately not a story of hope (unless you read the ending rather differently to me). Nevertheless, I'm glad I read it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes

-
Image
My friend Louise sent me this picture today. It's from a children's book with the rather wince-making title For The Wee Ones. I thought, when I read that (because I read the message before I looked at the picture) that the picture was going to be a typical winsome production from the school of artists who think (or who are paid to think) that the child is a thing sent from God and a blissful thing. They had obviously never met a child, and certainly not mine. I should have known Louise better. The artist responsible for Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes slipped this one past the editors. Just look at the poor, broken Mother Rabbit. She knows she has not the faintest chance of being listened to, and poor thing, she is stooped in the way of a mother to whom this is just the lastest in a long line of horror; with nothing good to come. And Archibald is obviously the spawn of the Devil. Just look at those eyes. He'll have the bed after he's finished the bedclothes
Read more

Dick Sparrow - 40 Horse Hitch, and Neil Dimmock's 46 Percherons

-
Image
Here's a clip of Dick Sparrow driving 40 horses. It's an amazing sight, particularly when the shot changes to show the team from the rear and you get the great incongruity of modern American corporate architecture as a background to the wagon and horses. I love the anticipation in the video: the sense of something amazing being just round the corner is palpable. Thanks to Christina Wilsdon for telling me about this world record 46 Percheron hitch (alas just stills) but you get the idea.
Read more

The Way Things Were: Pony Magazine in the 1960s

-
Image
As you have probably realised by now, as a child, I was pony-obsessed. My favourite monthly reading was Pony Magazine, which I read cover to cover: every advert; every word. I recently bought a set of Pony Magazines from the 1960s. I actually took Pony in the 1970s, but there wasn’t a lot of difference between the decades in the style and contents of the magazine. One advert which took me instantly back to that state of childhood wanting; longing for things I couldn’t have, and trying to work out what I could do to afford them, was for Jacatex riding clothes. How I loved that ad. The Pat hacking jacket; the Pat riding mac and the Pat jodhpurs. Who was Pat? Was there a Pat? Or were the clothes just something that was off pat? It was never explained. Jacatex adverts didn’t change much over the years. The 1969 ad below is the same one that I remember from the 1970s, a cheerful pony girl in immaculate clothes. I don’t know whether Jacatex ever did haul themselves into the modern age a
Read more