Golden Prize and Other Stories of Horses
1965, A Whitman Book, Western Publishing
Il. Cliff Schule
“He’s mine! I won him. He’s all mine.”
“Golden Prize” by Erva Loomis Merow
This collection of short horse stories for the younger reader is clearly intended for an audience with very basic reading skills. The plots are simple, the language plain and a little dull. All appear to have been written for this collection.
The cover illustration fits none of the stories. The interior illustrations have that strange, muted muddy tone that Whitman seems to have inflicted on all its books - here it's reddish; two other Whitman books I have (More Than Courage and The Wolf Of Thunder Mountain) have a slightly more clear green. All have different illustrators, so it's not the artists. All, of course, suffer the brittleness that I complained about in my review of More Than Courage, though I have managed to not actually destroy this book just by reading it.
List of stories
Golden Prize by Erva Loomis Merow
Molly Takes A Holiday by Mabel Watts
Runaway Rob by Peg Bottomley
Lefty, The Wrong-Way Pony by Florence Laughlin
Dancer Carries Double by Trella Lamson Dick
The Cow Pony by Bernadine Beatie
Coco, The Circus Horse by Jean Fiedler
A Present For Peanuts by Eva Grant
Clancy’s Last Tour by Jean Lewis
Little Con by Ellen Dolan
Partners by Jean Lewis
Golden Ghost Stallion by Sharon Wagner
Summaries
“Golden Prize” by Erva Loomis Merow
A small boy enters his name in a department store raffle and wins a horse. A pleasantly unlikely tale, complete with happy ending, despite the little snag that Terry and his parents live in an apartment.
Molly Takes A Holiday by Mabel Watts
The seashore would put sparkle in my eyes, thought Molly. It would bring back my appetite. She looked at Mr. Freddy with her big brown eyes. Then she laid her head against his arm.
A fishmonger takes his cart horse down the shore with him, and is richly rewarded when she saves him from drowning. An enchanted public promptly calls for a law decreeing all working horses receive a vacation each year. By far the most entertaining and well written story in the collection.
Runaway Rob by Peg Bottomley
The smallest pony in the circus gets fed up with coming dead last in the parade and runs away to find the respect and love he craves. Polly, meanwhile, sees a chance to get herself a pony and goes in search of the missing equine.
Lefty, The Wrong-Way Pony by Florence Laughlin
A dude ranch pony is afraid to turn to the right, making him very unpopular with the young campers. Then Peter comes along and tries to work Lefty past his fear.
Dancer Carries Double by Trella Lamson Dick
Nancy talks her big brother into taking her along on a ride on Dancer, to climb into the mountains in search of an eagle’s nest. When Gary is hurt, Nancy must ride the big horse down to find help.
The Cow Pony by Bernadine Beatie
A judge of horses would have known he was a quarter horse, prized by cattlemen all over the West. But this was dairy country. Few of the men or boys at the auction knew or cared very much about horses.
When Jodie sees a tired, defeated-looking horse at an auction, he bids on him out of pity. Then, a bull gets loose and Rebel’s instincts and training take over. Well done, though the classic dig at the tameness and dullness of farm country versus The West is a little much.
Coco, The Circus Horse by Jean Fiedler
A rosinback becomes frustrated with never having the chance to show off his tricks, and runs away in search of an appreciative audience.
A Present For Peanuts by Eva Grant
Jimmy and his friends race to save their favorite lesson horse, Peanuts, from being ‘sent away,’ which they realize means he’s to be killed because he’s growing too old to handle regular work. Some anachronisms are that the sympathetic stableman is ready to send Peanuts to an early grave, and 15 is considered too old to work.
Clancy’s Last Tour by Jean Lewis
Skip loves visiting with New York City police horse Clancy every day in Times Square, and is sad that Clancy is set to retire to the force’s farm upstate in just a few days.
Little Con by Ellen Dolan
Danny’s uncle buys him a Connemara from gypsies who promptly cause a fire and cause Danny and Con to race off across the Irish countryside in search of help.
Partners by Jean Lewis
Another New York City setting, as a pair of siblings try to take over their ailing grandfather’s horse and buggy ride through Central Park.
Golden Ghost Stallion by Sharon Wagner
Two children at a Montana dude ranch go in search of a mysterious palomino stallion, driven by their conviction that he’s trying to communicate. Fanciful, but nicely done.
Authors
Many if not all of the authors were specialists in writing picture books for very young children; several of them have multiple titles for Elf (very small, square picture books which had glorious color-saturated illustrations and which are typically somewhat fragile, having a binding which tends to unravel) and appear to have made a nice living from picture-book versions of popular television series ranging from Lassie to Swiss Family Robinson.
Erva Loomis Merow (b. 1922)
A Wisconsin native who was a teacher and missionary. She also wrote Pony (1965, A Whitman Tell-A-Tale Book), a photo book for beginner readers about a foal playing with a ball.
University of Wisconsin Hall of Fame
De Grummond Collection
Little Horseman on eBay
I have to admit an element of malice for this author; one of my other book interests is children’s stories about witches (there are, for the record, quite a few of them, so this isn’t completely insane) and Laughlin wrote one I can’t stand, The Little Leftover Witch. Nearly all these books end with the erstwhile witch child happily becoming a normal kid, so I shouldn’t really hold it against Laughlin, but the illustrations are so attractive and the little witch so bad at first, the ultimate resolution is doubly depressing. Laughlin wrote a seemingly horse-themed book in The Horse From Topolo (1966), but it appears to refer to a Mexican artifact rather than a real animal.
Trella Lamson Dick (1889-1974)
Another teacher, she wrote a popular series about an adventurous boy, Tornado Jones, as well as the equine story Burro On The Beach (1967) (il. Ted Lewin), about siblings who discover donkeys employed on a Pacific Northwest beach to haul cars off the sand.
The Children’s Literature Research Collections at the University of Minnesota
Evidently a Mormon (based on her presence in a book of short children’s stories in an anthology which states its purpose is to promote Mormon values). The Mormons, as anyone who has ever taken an interest in researching their family tree already knows, have a thing for documentation and some of Beatie’s short stories live online through the main website for the Saints. Her horse-themed story, Josef And The Lippizanners (January 1983, Friend) is here. She also has a horse story, “Danny And The Palomino,” in a horse anthology published by the magazine Highlights For Children - Storm’s Fury: And Other Horse Stories (1992)
Jean Fiedler
She wrote in a variety of genres, including Young Adult novels, mysteries, and picture book versions of 1960’s TV shows like Lassie, Gentle Ben and Daktari.
Jean Lewis
Did picture books for The Flintstones, Tweety, Lassie, Benji, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Scooby Doo and other television shows and movies. Most horsey (and, to my mind, most amusingly), she did books for Rainbow Brite, the 1980’s Hallmark cartoon featuring exceptionally sparkly, candy-colored girls and their pet horses WHO CAN FLY. Please see video below for exceptional levels of giggling and repressed feelings of wanting a sparkly white horse with a rainbow mane.
Born in Idaho, raised in Montana and a college student in Colorado. Most well-known by horse fans for her Gypsy series (Gypsy From Nowhere, Gypsy And Nimblefoot, Gypsy And The Moonstone Stallion), Wagner also wrote another horse book, Prairie Lady (aka Prairie Wind), and the somewhat horsey Dude Ranch Mystery, but most of her more than 40 books were Gothic romances. Which makes sense, seeing as how horse stories are essentially Gothic romances minus a man.
Illustrator - Cliff Schule
Also illustrated Saddle Patrol by Carl Henry Rathjen(1970) – odd note, Rathjen was one of several writers who produced a volume in the Trixie Belden series. He also wrote two horse stories which appeared in The Boys’ Life Book Of Horse Stories (1963), “The Curb Bit” and “Sacrifice Spurs.” He also had a horse story in The American Girl Book of Sports Stories (1965), “Trophy For Sheri.”
Whitman Books went into paperback as Golden Press in the 1970s, and Golden Prize was no exception. The paperback featured on this sale site reeks of the latter era.
And a Rainbow Brite video!!!
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2 comments:
I never would have thought of this, but it's so true:
"horse stories are essentially Gothic romances minus a man"
All those brooding, Byronic stallions! No wonder I switched from horse stories to the Brontes so quickly in adolescence.
My edition of Golden Prize had a different cover and did not include the last two stories you list. That's unfortunate because I loved the Gypsy books as a kid and would have been excited to see another story from Sharon Wagner.
My book also did not include the last two stories listed here. Loved the book.
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