|
Posting about the many copies of Black Beauty I was given as a child in another thread made me remember all the beloved horse books I read growing up as a Horse Girl™. Black Beauty was not one of them <  > Why would you give a child a book written for adults to increase awareness of the awful consequences of animal abuse instead of any of the many, many books written for horse crazy girls featuring horse crazy girls going on adventures with their horses?I tried to read the Black Stallion books originally but didn't enjoy them that much aside from the very early shipwreck desert island plot. Who wants to read about boys racing horses (and, I vaguely remember, sometimes worrying about rabies because there are vampire bats biting them when they race)? Boring. I think the vampire bats were in this one:  Anyway, the Black Stallion books have less "this horse is my friend and we have horse adventures" and more "WHICH HORSE IS THE ALPHA HORSE", aside from The Black Stallion and the Girl. That was written after Walter Farley's daughter died and is basically about a manic pixie dream horse girl showing up, messing things up with her hippie girl ways, being treated horribly by all the sexist men in the horse racing world, then vanishing forever and taking away Alec's only chance at a relationship with someone other than a horse. Will romance ruin Alec's brilliant racing career??? No. He will be alone forever, aside from his horse(s) and extremely chauvinistic and bitter old man trainer.  They are not Horse Girl™ books, though they do have some incredible titles and covers:   Girls racing horses on the other hand  The Thoroughbred series by Joanna Campbell commanded a lot of shelf space on my childhood bookshelves (because there were a lot of them). There are apparently 104 in total, though I started aging out of them somewhere around the 30-40s. The original series was books 1-23, with the first 14 being written by Joanna Campbell and 15-23 being written by her editor. The other 80 odd were written by a rotating "panel" of authors, and unsurprisingly, the quality drops quite a bit. Joanna wrote the first 14 in 5 years, while the last 5 years of the series saw 65 published, sooo  Regardless, A Horse Called Wonder was a magical book that holds a very dear place in my heart  The basic plot is bad things have happened to girl, girl cares for foal who is very sick and nearly dies but gets better thanks to girl's love and attention, girl and horse are best friends who grow up and become successful together. They are all essentially about girls who have a bond with a special horse and spend time doing things with their horse pal  The original series of 1-23 was all about horse racing. The new generation moved ahead 10 years and started with a focus on eventing, but it eventually returned to racing with only side characters doing eventing. I don't actually like horse racing and didn't have any interest in it as a child, but that was irrelevant as "girl has special bond with horse" trumped any other plot dressing. When looking for cover art of the originals, I saw an auction listing for the complete(?) series, and ngl I probably would have bid on something like that because a lot of these covers bring back powerful memories   
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2023 16:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 22:01 |
|
|
The other beloved Horse Girl series that claimed a huge amount of childhood bookshelf space was The Saddle Club by Bonnie Bryant (and ghostwriters) Three middle school age girls who ride at the same stable become best friends and form The Saddle Club. There are also 100 odd books in this series, though for a lot of them the girls don't age despite the books covering entire years of school or summer vacations. They're similar to the Babysitter's Club books, except with horses. I don't remember many of the plots that much, but I remember there were some wild ones involving things like kidnapping  Generally the basic plot beats can often be summed up as Something Is Happening, Veronica DiAngelo (their arch-enemy/frenemy) is a brat, Stevie jumps to wild conclusions and comes up with A Plan, Carole and Lisa go along with it, chaos ensues. Things like: those wacky girls, trying to run a stable while the owner Max Regnery III is getting married  
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2023 16:39
|
|
|
I only read one horse book but it was the rabid bat one.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2023 17:05
|
|
|
Books that are not Horse Girl™ books but which some adults will give children because it has a horse on the cover and is nominally about horses: The Horse Whisperer  A girl and her best friend go for a ride one morning. The bff's horse slips in the snow going up a slope, they all fall down into the road, and a semi plows into them. Best friend and her horse are killed, girl loses a leg, her horse is incredibly injured and probably should have been put down but instead is kept alive for reasons, both are deeply traumatised and miserable. Neat start. Girl's workaholic mother takes her and horse to Montana to work with the ~Horse Whisperer~, a super special horse trainer who helps girl and horse slowly improve. People who saw the movie would be familiar with this plot. However, the movie cuts out the meat of the book. Mother and horse trainer start having an affair - this is actually most of the book. The horse stuff is really just a background plot device to write a book about marital infidelity. Eventually girl finds out about the affair and runs away on her horse into the wilds of Montana. She gets caught up in a herd of mustangs somehow, and her horse has a big fight with the stallion of the herd (stallion fights appear to be a necessity any time a male author writes a horse book). Luckily, ~Horse Whisperer~ saves her at the last minute, but he feels so guilty about the affair that he purposefully gets himself trampled to death by the mustang stallion at the same time, forcing the poor teenager still dealing with the loss of her limb and her best friend to witness yet another graphic horse-related death  They go back home, and the mother stays married to her husband but also gives birth to horse trainer's baby. Neat book for a kid 
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2023 17:16
|
|
|
Not a book but a story Red Sultan's Big Boy in Make Something Up, a short story collection in Chuck Palahniuk. Divorced father buys an arabian for her teenage girl for a suspiciously good price. As it turns out the horse has a dark secret revealed by a video going viral. Great story about morality in the modern age.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2023 18:31
|
|
|
I remember having to read misty of chincoteague, I think as an assignment in school. does that count as a horse girl book
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2023 19:19
|
|
|
Yes, everything by Marguerite Henry was a horse girl book. Misty of Chincoteague, Stormy, Misty's Foal, Brighty of the Grand Canyon (technically a donkey girl book?), King of the Wind, Justin Morgan... I read all of them. I had some of the Saddle Club books too, but Marguerite Henry was the OG Horse Girl Author.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2023 01:04
|
|
|
HelloIAmYourHeart posted:Marguerite Henry was the OG Horse Girl Author. Yeah she really created the genre and put out so many quality horse stories She also had one of the best books, Album of Horses, which was just a big book of beautiful horse paintings and stories    
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2023 16:18
|
|
|
Does anything in Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar book series count as horse girl books, or are they just horse-adjacent
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2023 16:41
|
|
|
I used to love going to the library and checking out all the horse stories I could find, Marguerite Henry, the Flicka books etc. My godmother gifted me her collection of horse girl books too, so I have some really cool vintage books including some by Pat Smythe. Then there were all the great Patricia Leitch books like the Ginny and Shantih series, all the Pullein-Thompson sisters books, Gill's ponies and so on. There was just something endlessly appealing about all those stories about a girl from a poorer background managing to acquire the horse/pony of a lifetime and going through various challenges to win the big local/national show or whatever.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2023 11:43
|
|
|
I had the Kingfisher Story Library series growing up, which was a set of short story anthologies. There were seven themes, which I assumed represented all known genres of story: Ghost, Fantasy, Myth, Horse & Pony, Horror, Mystery and Vampire       Looking at the reviews, people complain that they wanted more horse races, and less spoiled brat/horse death
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2023 13:03
|
|
|
Jane: Read Pony Pals.  You've read this a million times already. It's one of your favorite gifts. Another gander at it sure couldn't hurt. > Jane: Examine contents. ...then some absolute madman went and did the complete book I haven't laughed so hard in a very long time https://detective-pony.tumblr.com/tagged/page/chrono
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2023 02:28
|
|
|
I went digging through my ancestors a while back. My great great grandfather met his wife while working in the US, so it seemed plausible that her family would still be living there - and indeed, this dude is apparently my cousin many times removed (± a generation or two). How is that thread relevant? Well, he's apparently "one of the finest horse photographers in the world", and has published a stack of coffee table horse photo books. Something about the style seems to come from the same place as a lot of horse girl book covers; it's all very dramatic and noble. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2023 03:11
|
|
|
quote:This book was the most popular book checked out in my second grade class and the girls would fight over it. I remember reading it later to find out what it was about, and it was the first time I ever found myself staring at a page for minutes not realizing I wasn't reading because the book was so boring I was thinking about Mega man or something.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2023 04:07
|
|
|
Black Stallion was required reading in 5th grade for some reason. There was this girl who really liked X-Files and one day she showed up to school and wouldn't stop crying. Like, all day, she just cried, she wouldn't stop, it was horrible. Why was she crying? I don't know. I thought it was because Mulder went AWOL in season 3 or whatever and Skully kept sleeping with these weird dudes and maybe she couldn't handle a vibrant red head with such womanly needs and a free-wheeling lifestyle but no, turns out, she was a horse girl and her own horse had died that morning. yeah well, anyway, I don't remember anything about black stallion because that poo poo was absolute trash
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2023 04:44
|
|
|
treat posted:Black Stallion was required reading in 5th grade for some reason. There was this girl who really liked X-Files and one day she showed up to school and wouldn't stop crying. Like, all day, she just cried, she wouldn't stop, it was horrible. Why was she crying? I don't know. I thought it was because Mulder went AWOL in season 3 or whatever and Skully kept sleeping with these weird dudes and maybe she couldn't handle a vibrant red head with such womanly needs and a free-wheeling lifestyle but no, turns out, she was a horse girl and her own horse had died that morning. Maybe my mom was a bad mom but "horse dying" sounds like a really loving good reason to stay home from school for a day or two
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2023 10:44
|
|
|
Pony Pals was another great horse girl series. Those books + the Babysitters Club series led me to believe Connecticut was a truly magical part of the world as a little girl in Australia.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2023 10:57
|
|
|
PinheadSlim posted:Maybe my mom was a bad mom but "horse dying" sounds like a really loving good reason to stay home from school for a day or two The only time I ever saw my dad call in sick for work when he wasn’t sick was when our dog died. Metis of the Hallway posted:Pony Pals was another great horse girl series. Those books + the Babysitters Club series led me to believe Connecticut was a truly magical part of the world as a little girl in Australia. It’s for rich people
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2023 13:34
|
|
|
ninjoatse.cx posted:The only time I ever saw my dad call in sick for work when he wasn’t sick was when our dog died. that explains how they have all the money for horses
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2023 02:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 22:01 |
|
|
Computer viking posted:I went digging through my ancestors a while back. My great great grandfather met his wife while working in the US, so it seemed plausible that her family would still be living there - and indeed, this dude is apparently my cousin many times removed (± a generation or two). no way! I had all those books (mostly received as special presents because they were expensive) and was completely obsessed with his photography those books inspired me to get into photography and were responsible for so many terrible horse pictures of my own this was the first one I got  this one was good  but this one was my favourite because it had so many unicorns and cool fantasy horse pictures  
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2023 19:22
|
|