Review - Amanda Wills: Into the Storm

-
I haven’t read any pony books for a while, because I’d lost my pony book mojo for a couple of months, and I’m glad I read this book as my first essay back into the pony world. Amanda Wills’ Into the Storm, I have to say, I’d have enjoyed whether it had been about ponies or dustbins. It’s exciting, dramatic, and an excellent answer to the question of what do you do with your characters when they’ve had two home-based adventures – you plonk them somewhere totally new and see what happens.

Amanda Wills has spirited Poppy away from Devon in this third of the Riverdale ponies series. Poppy has won a riding holiday in a competition with her short story about a Connemara, and she and best friend Scarlett are about to leave when the book opens. Poppy is desolate at the thought of being without her beloved Connemara, Cloud, and things don’t improve when they get to Oaklands Trekking Centre. Poppy tries her best to overcome her shyness with the other trekkers, but it doesn’t really work. She thinks that because she won the writing competition to get here, she’ll have a fantastic horse, but what does she end up with? Solid, hairy piebald cob Beau, that’s what. Everyone else has dream ponies – grey Arab mares; floaty palominos.




It’s not fair. That’s what Poppy thinks. Neither is it fair that tall and glamorous Cally seems to hit it off with Scarlett. Nobody seems to think very much of Poppy. Beau isn’t interested in being a willing co-operator, and Poppy’s always at the back of the ride, always the one people are waiting for, and the one people have to pick up off the floor when it all goes wrong. Poppy couldn’t be more fed up. This isn’t how things should be.

Amanda Wills does a brilliant job of showing someone who has what my grandmother would call a real mardy fit on. Poppy has painted herself into a corner. How she gets out again makes an excellent story. Amanda Wills does friendship spats extremely well, and best of all, she lets you see both points of view.

I enjoyed this story more than book two (and I liked that very much). It’s neatly plotted, wryly amusing, and full of those moments that anyone who’s had anything to do with ponies will recognise – the failure to travel those few centimetres that would make opening the gate easy, and the casual plonking of a hoof on your fragile foot. The drama when the storm hits Oaklands is thoroughly gripping. I do like a story that moves its participants on; where they’ve realised something about themselves, or the way life works, and when, as here, when it’s done by a subtle and effective writer it’s a real treat.

~  0  ~

Amanda Wills: Into the Storm
Kindle, £2.25

Age of main character: 12
Themes: jealousy, friendship issues, violent storms


Amanda Wills’ 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