Book Reviews – Shiny Pony

December 31, 2025December 31, 2025

Wyoming Summer – Mary O’Hara

Dust jacket: Wyoming Summer by Mary O'Hara. A small group of horses in a dry grass field against a backdrop of cloudy sky.

If you love horses, you have probably read Mary O’Hara’s classic novel, My Friend Flicka. Or perhaps you’ve seen the movie.

Flicka is drawn from the author’s real life with her husband Helge Sture-Vasa on the Remount Ranch, Wyoming in the 1930s.

I have always loved Flicka, Thunderhead, and Green Grass of Wyoming, and have re-read the trilogy many times. As a child, I knew nothing of the author. As an adult, I was curious to read the memoir of her Wyoming experiences.

Published in 1963, Wyoming Summer details a summer Mary spent on the ranch, though she incorporated incidents from other summers. Names got changed. The Remount Ranch becomes the Goose Bar Ranch of fiction, yet I feel the name change is unnecessary. No reader would have trouble recognizing the Remount as the Goose Bar! Mary’s husband Helge is referred to as Michael. The Sture-Vasas become the Bergwins. My guess is the publisher preferred American-sounding names.

It’s a nice companion to the series, though not the same read. This book consists of vignettes and tidbits of life on the ranch, and some of Mary’s life off the ranch. There’s action and drama, and plenty of humor, life on the ranch was never boring!

November 17, 2020

The Horsemasters by Don Stanford

This horse story is based on real life, in particular, the daily chores of caring for horses at a riding school in Great Britain. I never read this title as a child, but discovered it recently and loved it!

1957 Funk & Wagnalls first edition hardcover — 1957 Funk and Wagnalls first edition

The majority of horse books for children and young adults tend to glamorize horse ownership. There are exceptions, of course, but few books really dig into the sheer work that owning a horse entails and this is what I loved here. Details like feeding the horse on time, keeping it groomed, cleaning its stall, its tack and treating its ailments are often only casually mentioned or completely ignored in other books. But it’s just these tidbits that bring home what owning a horse might be like.

Basing his fictional tale on the very real Porlock Vale Equestrian Centre in Great Britain, Mr. Stanford gives us chapter after chapter of mucking out, cleaning yards, grooming, treating horse ailments, having falls and other riding incidents, and creates a wonderfully entertaining read from the everyday life of a student!

June 5, 2019June 20, 2019

Come Down the Mountain – Vian Smith

Most fiction from the pony book genre starts with a boy or girl who desperately wants a horse. He or she usually acquires a horse. And proceeds to successfully tame, ride, show or race the horse.

Come Down the Mountain is a bit different than the norm in several ways. The most obvious is the dust jacket artwork. There’s nary a horse to be found, a quite unusual approach by the publishers!

Doubleday 1967 American hardcover edition of "Come Down the Mountain" by Vian Smith — Doubleday 1967 American edition