Bright Wampum (1958)

Bright Wampum

Dorothy Lyons, il. Wesley Dennis (jacket, frontspiece)

1958, Harcourt, Brace & Company

To horse-hungry Merry, the mare was perfection from her dainty head with its white arrowhead mark to her sinewy legs and well-muscled quarters. Her white glistened brighter than the others', while the sharply marked bay spots were perfect circles. They ranged in size from dimes to dollars, as if a handful of coins carelessly tossed into the air had fallen across the mare's white rump patch.

Meredith 'Merry' Moore and her family are in the midst of moving from Nebraska to California (whose climate, it is hoped, will cure sickly younger sister Anita) when they break down on the Big Sur coast. Merry, who had spent time riding bucking horses back home, quickly finds a herd of Appaloosas near the cabin where they spend the night, and bonds with the beautiful mare she dubs Bright Wampum.

A Western to balance all of Lyons' show jumping stories, this one somehow gets lost in a maze of a mystery regarding the ranch and a Native American tribe. But toward the end it gets back on track as Merry is torn between a career with the rodeo and a more normal life, and the owner of their rented ranch returns to claim his horses.

Merry trains several horses, including the frustrating Black Penny and her own Wampum, and the sequences involving horse care and training are satisfying.

Merry brushed and buffed until the bright bay coat and spotted 'blanket' threw the sun back in her eyes.

Horses

Bright Wampum - bay/white Appaloosa mare

Sachem - black/white Appaloosa stallion

Queen of Spades - black mare

Amigo

Rawhide - buckskin

Black Penny - black/white Appaloosa mare

Other books by Author
Silver Birch (1939)
Midnight Moon (1941)
Golden Sovereign (1946)
Red Embers (1948)
Harlequin Hullabaloo/Bluegrass Champion (1949)
Copper Khan (1950)
Dark Sunshine (1951)
Blue Smoke (1953)
Java Jive (1955)
Pedigree Unknown (1973)

Other Information about the Author

1907-1998
Lyons was originally from Michigan, but lived most of her life in California. Her first two books revolved around friends in a mounted Girl Scout troop in Michigan, then the action moved West. She bred Connemaras. Lyons also wrote an autobiographical work, The Devil Made The Small Town (1983). Wesley Dennis illustrated nearly all her horse books.

Chancey of the Maury River
Gigi Amateau, il. Tim O'Brien (cover)
2008, Candlewick Press

An aged schoolhorse named Chancey recalls his early life, the circumstances that led to his semi-abandonment, and his second chance at greatness as the beloved horse of a little girl.

Bred to be a snowflake Appaloosa, Chancey turned out to be a nearly albino foal. His disgusted breeder never forgave him the disappointment, especially when his beautiful dam died in a freak accident soon after his birth. But Monique kept the oddly pale horse, using him as a school horse to teach children to ride.

My prior career as a school horse had been long and diversified. In my youth, I introduced dozens of girls to the artistry of dressage. I carried many a young man through the mechanics of learning to jump....for twenty or so faithful years, I had schooled without complaint, nearly every day and often for many hours

But when Monique falls on hard times and has to sell her horses, no former student steps forward to buy the aging gelding. Chancey recognizes the reasons he was never a favorite; his odd, semi-albino appearance, the rejection of his owner, and his own grumpy demeanor.

In all my days at Monique's as a school horse, I was a reliable worker but had a reputation as being difficult, even mean.

He tries to push away Claire, the stuttering little girl who, suffering from her parents' divorce, forms a bond with the bony old gelding who's brought to live at the Maury River Stables. But she won't have it. She showers him with affection and attention, and for the first time since his dam's untimely death twenty years earlier, Chancey is tempted to develop affection for another living being.

Together, horse and girl do manage to achieve greatness.

Well-written, with many homages to the classic children's stories; the Black Beauty-like style, the horse-becoming-great theme of National Velvet, the 'love makes us real' ethic of books from The Velveteen Rabbit to The Little Prince to Pinnochio.

I suppose, if you have never before been any girl's or boy's favorite horse, no heart longs for you.

The ruminative style is nice, but possibly too old for children to readily accept. The esoteric horsey-language (hunter shows, gelded, etc.), and the fanciful adventures (the horse deliberately leading a person to a clue) are also at odds.

Horse Themes
Horse Show
Abuse/Rescue
OHDEARGODITSPINTO!!!!!

Setting
The Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains

Horses
Chancey - white Appaloosa gelding
Starry Night/Dam - black snowflake Appaloosa mare
Gwen - blood bay Hanoverian mare
Daisy - Welsh cob mare
Princess - Arab mare
Dante - black Thoroughbred gelding
Macadoo - blond sorrel Belgian gelding

About the Author
Author Website

Other Books by the Author
Claiming Georgia Tate
A Certain Strain Of Peculiar