PBOTD 11th April: Linda Newbery - The Damage Done

-
Poor Kirsty, heroine of The Damage Done (2001). She is used, quite ruthlessly, by her family. Her beloved brother leaves her to run the livery stables he's set up - her father relies on her to run the household because he is Writing. Long, long ago, he wrote a successful book, but his literary output since has been the same as a dog's: nothing. But he is always busy with the great work. Kirsty's mother is off the scene. She is far more together than Kirsty's father, and she is prepared to do whatever it takes to get what she wants. If this involves leaving Kirsty, so be it, but that doesn't mean she's going to ignore Kirsty completely. She wants Kirsty to do the conventional thing: education, university, London. To be one of those middle class girls a mother can show off with a certain quiet pride.

Scholastic, 2001, first edition
And what of Kirsty in all this? Kirsty is tottering. She has far more to cope with than any girl her age should, and she has developed agoraphobia, which bearing in mind all she has to cope with, seems a remarkably sane and sensible approach to her difficulties.

Linda Newbery makes Kirsty's attempts to find her own way through the conflicting selfishnesses of her family entirely believable. Kirsty is helped by another injured soul: Dally, who mysteriously appears, working as a gardener. Through all this are woven the horses, who provide a still centre where Kirsty can hide. If only it weren't for all the constructs we put on horses, and on people, and on ourselves.

~  0  ~

The Damage Done was published by Scholastic Books in 2001. The author has now released it as an ebook, and it's well worth the read.

For more on the author and her horse books, she has a page on my website.

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