Review: Victoria Eveleigh - Katy's Pony Challenge

-
The Katy stories were what established Victoria Eveleigh as an author. I read those when they were first out, and loved their inspired rejection of the pink, frilly and sentimental. The stories were picked up by Orion, re-written, and after an excursion into an excellent pony series centring around boy hero Joe, Victoria has returned to Katy and her Exmoors.



Victoria Eveleigh never disappoints, and this book is another triumph. One of the things I so enjoy about this author is her fearlessness. If you write pony stories, you can, frankly, churn out any rubbish you like as long as it has the requisite pony in it.  Talking about the 1950s, children’s author Geoffrey Trease said ‘In those days you could have sold Richard III if you had given it the right wrapper and called it A Pony for Richard,’ but it’s just as valid now. Victoria Eveleigh does not do that. Katy’s Pony Challenge looks at what you do when you can’t actually ride your pony, for whatever reason. And what you do when you decide that actually, equine competition is not for you. And at how you can still be involved with horses, no matter what difficulties you have.

Katy discovers horse agility, which is a big help to her as she tries to train her foal, Tinkerbell, with whom Katy has made some pretty major mistakes in her upbringing, not realising that a foal rearing up and putting its hooves on your shoulders might be cute when it’s only weeks old but is an entirely different thing when the foal weighs several times more than you do. I suppose you could say that in some ways this book does carry on that great central trope of the pony story - the morality tale. You learn how to train a foal properly from the off, that competition isn’t the be all and end all and neither in fact is riding, and that just because someone is different, doesn’t mean that you should reject them.

This could make the book one of those you read but feel uncomfortable about, because although you support the ideas behind it, the way it’s done makes it difficult to clear the awful hurdle of authorial superiority. There is absolutely no danger of that here. I think what makes Victoria Eveleigh’s writing so successful is her utter lack of sentimentality. There is plenty of deep feeling, but she never writes for effect; never wrings her readers’ emotions in order to get a reaction. She writes about difficult things: Katy’s jealousy when Trifle and autistic James have an instant bond is a beautifully done scene. Katy and her friend Alice’s Facebook lives are rather different from what’s actually going on in their lives. Friendship is sometimes very difficult indeed.

Katy’s Pony Challenge is a beautifully written addition to the series. It’s difficult to see how you could fail if you’re buying this for a pony mad child, or indeed for yourself.

~  0  ~ 

Thanks to Orion for sending me a copy of this book.

Katy’s Pony Challenge
Orion, 2015: £5.99
Kindle: £3.99, Kobo: £3.99

Age of main characters: 12-13?
Themes: autism, managing friendships
Equine themes: horse agility


Victoria Eveleigh’s website

Comments

LyzzyBee said…
I really enjoyed this one, too - I love the matter of fact way Victoria writes about relationships and ponies and the characters with "issues" are never just an "issue", but a fully rounded person.
1 September 2015 at 07:46
Jane Badger said…
Exactly - she's an author absolutely without side.
4 September 2015 at 13:58
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