Pony Jungle (Lavinia R. Davis, 1941)

Pony Jungle
Lavinia R. Davis, il. Gordon Ross
1941, Doubleday & Company

She held her breath and turned Gray Mouse's head toward the outside of the circle. She got a good grip with her knees and then touched her inside heel to his side. "Come on, boy," she called. "Canter. Canter, now!"

At the start of the summer, 12-year-old Dibs Terrill is looking forward to meeting her new neighbors, two English children shipped to a wealthy relative to escape the war. Her 13-year-old brother, Josh, is less interested, being more or less completely absorbed in his study of nature around their rural Connecticut home. And 6-year-old Tommy is simply too young to understand. But Dibs's first meeting with the Edgemonts twins is a disaster. Rosemary is fat and dreamy, hardly the wan princess Dibs has imagined. And Patrick is cranky and aloof, far from the gallant Englishman of her dreams. And there are inevitable Anglo-American wrangles.

"I shouldn't bellow so were I you," Patrick said before the echo of Dibs's shrill voice had entirely vanished. Grand'mere doesn't like shrieking." Dibs gave one convulsive sniff at the idea of really calling anyone Grand'mere...

The other children have their own worries; Tommy is endlessly trying to keep up with the older kids, Josh senses his indifference to sports and riding disappoints his father, and the twins are both haunted by memories of bombings and harassed by a present where their only choice of companions is a grumpy old groom, their grandmother or a trio of somewhat annoying Americans.


Which is where the horses come in. When the pony Gray Mouse leads Dibs into a hobo camp, her idea of making their own version creates a connection with the Brits for the first time, and the kids become friends as they construct their very own hobo jungle, dubbed the pony jungle after Gray Mouse. Dibs and Patrick, in some ways natural enemies, bond over their shared love of horses and riding, while Rosemary and Josh happily continue their solitary pursuits of reading and nature study. There are various adventures, often involving the horses, and a standard mystery.


While the horse Barney and the pony Gray Mouse play a significant role in the story, it's more of a straightforward adventure tale than a horse story. There are chapters given over to a horse show, a foxhunt, and other horsey activities, but the bulk of the plot is about the friendships and activities of the humans. It's a very strong book, especially in the fleeting but powerful images of Patrick's confusion, upon waking, that the crash of trash cans outside are the bombs falling around his boarding school back in England.

Equines
Major - farm horse
Gray Mouse - grey pony
Barney - chestnut gelding

Dogs
Poodles - Poodle
Tickles - Scottish Terrier
Royal - Great Dane

About the Author
1909-1961
Lavinia Riker Davis was born in New York City
According to the website TomFolio.com, Davis wrote over 43 books, some under the name Wendell Farmer. A collection of her diaries, The Journals of Lavinia Riker Davis, was published in 1964. This is available online at the Alexander Street Press's Social And Cultural History: Letters And Diaries Online.

TomFolio


Other books
Buttonwood Island (1940) (il. Paul Brown)
Pony Jungle (1941) (il. Gordon Ross)
Plow Penny Mystery (1942( (il. Paul Brown)
Melody, Muttonbone And Sam (1947) (il. Paul Brown)
The Secret Of Donkey Island (1952)
Sandy's Spurs (1951)
Donkey Detective (1955)
Hobby Horse Hill

Juvenile, non-horsey
Island City
Clown Dog
Round Robin
Americans Every One
Spinney And Spike And The B-29
It Happened On A Holiday
Adventures In Steel
Grab Bag
Skyscraper Mystery

Picture Books
Roger And The Fox
The Wild Birthday Cake
Danny's Luck
Summer Is Fun

Teen
Hearts In Trim
Janey's Fortune
A Sea Between
Come Be My Love
Stand Fast And Reply

Thrillers
Evidence Of Dragons
Threat Of Dragons
Barren Heritage
Taste Of Vengeance
Reference To Death

Anthologies featuring a story
Great Stories About Dogs
Flying Hoofs: Stories Of Horses

About the Illustrator
Gordon Ross (1873-1946)
Born in Scotland, he moved to San Francisco as a teen and studied at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute and worked on the San Francisco Chronicle. He moved to New York City, where he began illustrating books.

Hobby Horse Hill
Lavinia R. Davis, il. Charles Beck
1939
Pictured edition - 1966 Scholastic paperback

Terry didn't have time to care. She was too busy getting settled on Pigeon's broad back. You couldn't get a grip at all in silk pajamas, and the leathers chafed her knees. None of the grown-ups was going along. She was off for a long afternoon on this uncomfortable pony, and nobody to help her but Rod and Kate. It was like riding in your night clothes in a bad dream.

Poor Terry! Packed off to stay with 'the wild Wades,' her cousins in rural Conneticut, while her parents go to Europe, she's intimidated by their careless ways and their effortless mastery of riding. She knows how to ride, but somehow her lessons on quality horses back home don't seem to have prepared her for tearing along the rocky back hills on a feisty little no'account pony like Frosty Roan, in the wake of her madcap cousins. And her first outing is to a fancy-dress horse drill, where a mysterious milkmaid rescues her from own own ill-chosen Chinese pajama outfit. But she adapts, and soon the cousins are engrossed with a mystery centered on their beloved boarder, Cassandra, the beautiful Irish hunter.

One of those beloved horse books that comes up every time horse nuts discuss horse books from their childhood, "Hobby Horse Hill" is the fish-out-of-water story involving horses. Betty Cavanna's very similar Spurs For Suzanna came out in 1957, and the nearly 20-year difference is notable. Terry may be concerned with clothing and manners, but she's very much a child. It's never quite clear exactly how old she is, but she's at least 12, and yet there is no suggestion of an interest or awareness in boys or approaching adolescence. She and her cousins Rod and Kate are all about riding, playing and exploring the countryside. Her fears and problems are a child's - embarassment at being made to seem ignorant, anger at being dismissed as incompetent, desire to 'show' others.

Even more obviously last-century is the earlier book's ease with it's wild vs. civilized equation. In Cavanna's book, while the city girl does learn the value of the wild farm kid's approach to life, the farm kids also discover some value in her's - her love of books and her mastery of urban life impress them. In Davis's book, the quieter girl finds her inner hoyden too, but the country kids simply dismiss her as a 'siss' until she learns to imitate them, and there is never any intimation that the way she was raised might have anything they might desire. That is a blatant ripoff of classic English children's stories; the Brits had a penchant for stories in which the heroes are forever being effortlessly superior to those around them, and nobody ever questions the grounds for that superiority by saying, for example, hey, you're so pale I can see through you and your voice sounds like a tweety bird.

Horses
Cassandra - chestnut mare, hunter
Magda - grey farm mare
Hobby Horse - brown and white colt, Magda's foal
Pigeon - gray pony mare
Virginia Girl - mare
Frosty Roan - red roan gelding

Dogs/Other Animals
Trix - fox terrier
Blaze - setter
Rubber - cocker spaniel?
Sylvia - goat

About the Author
1909-1961
According to the website TomFolio.com, Davis wrote over 43 books, some under the name Wendell Farmer. A collection of her diaries, The Journals of Lavinia Riker Davis, was published in 1964.

TomFolio

Other books by Lavinia R. Davis
Buttonwood Island (1940) (il. Paul Brown)
Pony Jungle (1941) (il. Gordon Ross)
Plow Penny Mystery (1942( (il. Paul Brown)
Melody, Muttonbone And Sam (1947) (il. Paul Brown)
The Secret Of Donkey Island (1952)
Sandy's Spurs (1951)
Donkey Detective (1955)