PBOTD 26th July: Christine Pullein-Thompson - Riders from Afar

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The PBOTD for 26th July is Christine Pullein-Thompson's Riders From Afar. Originally published in 1954, this was one of Christine Pullein-Thompson's earlier books. It's set at a castle, lived in by a poverty-stricken family who are renting the castle to an American family for the summer to raise money. The children are not looking forward to this at all, but the Americans prove to be a pretty decent lot.


The original had one of Charlotte Hough's more wispy covers, but it suffered a little when it was reprinted in paperback by Armada. Armada's cover artists visited some pretty horrible riding efforts on the pony book reading public in the 1960s, and this is one of them. It's particularly ironic if you bear in mind how agin the backward seat the Pullein-Thompsons were.

As an image, I do like this cover: it has Mary Gernat's characteristic energy. It's just a shame about the backward seat. And I do wonder quite what happened next - did the pony recover and jump the five bar gate? Or was there a terrible kerfuffle as he slammed into it?

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