I don’t blame you. I tend to buy an extra copy of special horse books to loan to friends any more. Not the really rare or expensive ones, but if I can easily find used ones that are reasonable I’ll buy it for them without telling them I bought it so I can hold my own copy. I’ve learned people rarely return horse books or my horse DVDs (Jappaloup, Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit, etc.) and I just want to not worry about it. If they return it, great, I have an extra copy to lend to the next person. I love sharing a good book (old horse movie) and bonus points if that person tells me what they thought of it afterward.
2 Likes
I had Black Beauty, Bonnie the Sweet Running Filly, My Friend Flicka, The Phantom, Tumble, the story of a Mustang, the Misty of Chincoteque series, The Black stallion and 2 more in that series, National Velvet, King of the Wind, there were more, can’t remember
there’s another one, I can see the cover, can’t quite remember the name…
Another one was Summer Pony! I had Winter Pony too but it wasn’t as good and had someone other than Sam Savitt draw the pictures and it made a huge difference to me.
1 Like
The illustrations made a BIG difference in my love for the books. The Billy and Blaze series I loved mostly for the illustrtions.
4 Likes
I have purged my books so many times I no longer have any of the books I loved as a child. But I particularly remember the Margaret O’Hara books especially Thunderhead, The Horsemasters, all the Marguerite Henry books and Sam Savitt’s Blaze series. Well, I know read everything I could find that had a horse in it. Many were beautifully illustrated, and that was almost the best part.
1 Like
I loved her books!
I read all the Jean Slaughter Doty books but the one I saved up to buy (since they were out of print by that point) was Dark Horse and of course I still have it. It was the book that taught me about the big eq- indirectly, through Wayfarer and Angela- but I empathized with Abby, catching rides where I could and buying my hunt coats used. I ended up winning a national writing contest with my essay on that book- the prompt was something like “a book that changed your life” or something. I still reread it about once a year and I think about Abby every time I see a down vest leaking feathers in the tack room (a very specific image, but one I see often this time of year!)
4 Likes
A Horse Named Doodlebug. The first horse book I can remember reading and the rest is history!
3 Likes
I like this book, also. I have two copies of it. If I find a favorite, hard-to-find horse book from my childhood, I tend to buy them (usually at second-hand stores). I hold onto them, if someone is seriously looking for them. I have some Billy and Blaze books, too, that I found. I will try to re-home them, eventually.
Most of the books I find are ex-library books and show WEAR. For me, that’s not a problem. I’m just happy to have some of my favorite-from-childhood books. And I’m still trying to acquire books. But right now, I need to catalog the ones I have, or I’ll end up buying duplicates.
2 Likes
The Cammie books were my favorites. There were three in the series, and I believe I first found Cammie’s Choice (the first) in my school library. I checked it out as often as I could. These books were my inspiration for joining Pony Club as an adult member about 50 years later - never did get to rally though. The author was Jane McIlvaine - later Jane McIlvaine McClary - who also wrote some other horse books including the adult fiction title “A Portion for Foxes” which was quite a bit darker.
In a fit of benevolence, I gave many of my childhood horse books to the horse camp I attended throughout my middle and high school years. That included a copy of the original Snowman by Rutherford Montgomery. I later regretted my generosity!
I have reacquired many of my favorites as an adult - thanks to ebay, exlibris, etc. I’ve also read some of the ones I missed in my youth that have popped up in COTH threads from time to time.
1 Like
After a few failures, I have found an app which meets my requirements of being, 1. Free, and 2. Interested in cataloging my PHYSICAL books. Several apps I tried out seemed to think their primary function in life was to get you sharing e-books and downloading e-books. Nope, I wanted to catalog my PHYSICAL books.
It’s Librarything. I’m now cataloging my books at a few minutes per day. The only downfall I’ve found is that if you are trying to use the barcode scanner on more recent books and you get going too quickly, it can jump or something in scanning, as in you are scanning Book A and it adds entirely different Book B. So slow down enough to take a good, clear focus on each book and keep an eye on the list as it adds. You can easily go into your catalog and delete error books.
1 Like
