PBOTD: January 19th, Joanna Cannan - Another Pony for Jean

-
I'm still stuck in the 1930s with today's blog post. Having written about Moyra Charlton's Midnight Steeplechase (1932) and Marjorie Mary Oliver's The Ponies of Bunts (1933), I can't leave the thirties without writing about the author who set the template for the pony story: Joanna Cannan. With her first children's book, A Pony for Jean (1936), we see a girl who moves from the town to the country (though it's not a lifestyle decision: they're forced out after the money runs out when pepper goes wrong for Jean's father); Jean doesn't have a pony, and doesn't know how to ride. She gets a pony, and learns to ride, and triumphs over others at the end-of-book gymkhana. When the bare bones are set out, the book seems trite and unimaginative, but it is illuminated by its author's wry humour. 

 Here Jean's aunt (Cousin Agnes) tells her about the Pony Club.
"It'll be great fun seeing you at the rallies." She looked at the cousins, and said, 'Won't it?" in the voice of a commanding officer.The cousins said 'Yes,' meekly, but I knew that it wasn't 'Yes,' that they were thinking."
Jean's adventures didn't end with A Pony for Jean. The series would probably win any prize going for blinding simplicity of title. What you read was what you got: after A Pony for Jean came Another Pony for Jean (1938) and More Ponies for Jean (1943). Fortunately the content of the series outweighs their pedestrian titles. Joanna Cannan's children, the Pullein-Thompsons continued to provide plenty of source material for her portrait of an independent, pony loving, girl.

In the second book, Another Pony for Jean, the family's fortunes have improved (whether pepper went right we're not told), and Jean's been sent away to school with her Cousin Camilla. Most of the action takes place, therefore, in the school holidays. Jean hunts, and most exciting of all, finds that the first aid she's practised on the leg of the dining table comes into sudden use. Jean gets a reward for her good sense: a pony, Charity.


 This book has just as much humour as the first. Jean makes hopeless attempts to build a bantam house, and has a staggeringly awkward tea with Charity's owner until they both unbend over their shared hopelessness. It's an excellent read, and remains one of my favourites.

 Another Pony for Jean was published twice, as far as I know. The original was illustrated by Anne Bullen, and I covet that one. I do have a hardback, but I've never had one with a dustjacket. The paperback version above was published by Knight in the 1970s. Parent company of Knight, Hodder & Stoughton, also published hardback versions of A Pony for Jean  and More Ponies for Jean in the 1970s. I've never come across a 1970s hardback version of Another Pony for Jean. 
~ 0  ~

 For more on Joanna Cannan, try here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rollkur and the blue tongue

-
I've been meaning to write about this all week, but reading the exclusive in Horse and Hound about the controversy tipped me over the edge. For my non-horsy readers, rollkur is a training/warming up technique used by some dressage riders. It basically involves riding the horse with its jaw pulled in virtually to its chest, in order to increase suppleness. Patrik Kittel , a Swedish competitor in Odense was videoed riding his horse in this way. If you watch the video , you'll see the horse's tongue hanging out - blue. It takes a while before the rider notices this. When he does, he stops, puts the horse's tongue back in, and carries on. There are two things which bother me about this. Firstly, I am fully aware large sections of the dressage world, and some of its brighest stars, consider rollkur perfectly ok, but the FEI guidelines state this practice should only be for short periods, allowing the horse to rest. Patrick Kittel apparently rode the horse for two hou...
Read more

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