Another old book gets a re-issue!

The 1965 book A Kingdom In A Horse by Maia Wojciechowska, which I reviewed here in 2009, is being reprinted in paperback by Skyhorse Publishing under their children's fiction imprint Sky Pony Press (February 1, 2012). In the book, a mare named Gypsy unites an odd couple; a teenage boy angry at his father for quitting the rodeo just as he became old enough to start competing, and an older woman whose childhood love of horses returns to sustain her after her husband dies. Skyhorse also featured previously on this blog in 2009 as the company responsible for reprinting Sam Savitt's first illustrated book, Gordon Wright's 1966 Learning To Ride, Hunt And Show.


In other coming attractions:

Fiction
The beautifully illustrated Horse Diaries series has another installment due in late October, Alison Hart's Risky Chance, about a Thoroughbred racehorse during the 1930s. (Random House, October 25)

The Winter Pony by Iain Lawrence (November 8, 2011, Random House) follows a wild white pony who becomes caught up in Scott's expedition to the South Pole.

The Breyer Horse Collection has another installment as well in Jessie Haas's Chico's Challenge (November 8).

Dandi Daley Mackall has a new series from Christian press Tyndale House Publishers in Backyard Horse. The first book is Horse Dreams, and the second is Cowboy Colt. Both appear to be scheduled for a September release. The idea behind the series is (from Tyndale's website):


The theme of the Backyard Horses series is that being beautiful on the outside is not the most important quality to develop. Our inward appearance is much more important to God (1 Samuel 16:7).

An interesting approach in the horsey genre, which has always had a weakness for great bloodlines and spectacular talent.

Jane Smiley has another Young Adult novel coming out in True Blue (September 27, Knopf). Her young heroine has a fairly common fictional experience of effortlessly inheriting The Horse Of Her Dreams, but begins to suspect that the horse's deceased owner is haunting her. Another interesting approach that appears to rethink the classic "Oh, some old adult person died and left me Whickers!" plot.

Nonfiction
The Eighty Dollar Champion: Snowman, The Horse That Inspired A Nation, by Elizabeth Letts is due out from Ballantine on August 23, 2011. Bought out of the infamous New Holland auction in 1956, actually taken from the slaughterhouse-bound truck, Snowman repaid new owner Harry de Leyer by becoming a quality show jumper. He also became a bit of a celebrity, his rags-to-riches story complimenting his appealing personality.