Author/Illustrator - Jeanne Mellin

First, The Lost Pony. When I was a small and horse-crazy child who loved reading, I discovered this thin book in the possession of a friend who was neither horse-crazy nor bookish. She was, however, contrary and refused to part with it. So I had to wait a while before stumbling across it in a thrift shop. It was worth the wait. It had, after all, the best of all possible plots, that of horse-crazy kids who get a pony through a miracle.

The plot was of a stray pony adopted by twin siblings (very much in the classic Savitt/Anderson/etc. kind of East Coast landed gentry with a dad forever clad in a dapper 1950's suit, frowning mildly and smoking a pipe), who have been longing for a horse of their own to ride, but whose parents have always been dubious about the costs involved. The instantly love the pony and soon groom him for a show. At one point, they hide him in a chicken shed.


While the story was horsey heroin to a kid who lived in hopes of having a stray pony appear in the alley beside my house, the illustrations were key. The book was one of those highly illustrated children's books that bridge the gap between picture books and early chapter books.

Jeanne Mellin's earliest book illustrations, including those for Lost Pony, were as a collaboration with her friend Nancy Caffrey.


So this very simple and satisfying book was my introduction to Jeanne Mellin's art, and nearly the last time I saw it until I happened to open a nonfiction book about Morgans many years later. Copies of her books with Nancy Caffrey are relatively rare, but it's not hard to locate copies of her nonfiction works on the Morgan horse in libraries. Much of the following information comes from the New York Morgan Horse Society's website; Mellin has been a devotee of the Morgan breed since becoming convinced that her first horse, a mare named Bonnie, had Morgan ancestry.


As a child, Mellin was a member of the Junior Calvalry of America, a horsemanship club founded by writer and rider Margaret Cabell Self. She then attended the Rhode Island School of Design. While doing portraits of some horses at the Morgan farm Ardencarple Acres, she met future husband Fred Herrick, head trainer for the farm. They married in 1955, and began working at another Morgan farm, Applevale. They moved on to Empyrean Hills, then began an association with Saddleback Farm, a partnership which lasted until 1989. Both husband and wife are featured in numerous articles in Morgan publications, and both have won awards from the American Morgan Horse Association. One daughter, Nancy, owns Rose Hill Farm, and stands a Morgan stallion as well as showing. Jeanne Mellin also did sculptures for several Breyer Horses.


Links and Sources
Mellin's Art website
Aquarian Morgans
Identify Your Breyers
New York State Morgan Horse Society article on Jeanne Mellin (HTML version of a pdf)
New York State Morgan Horse Society profile
New Canaan Mounted Troop



Books - As Writer/Illustrator (fiction)
Pidgy's Surprise

Books as Writer and Illustrator (nonfiction)
Illustrated Horseback Riding For Beginners
Horses Across America
Horses Across The Ages
The Morgan Horse
America's Own Horse Breeds
Ride A Horse
The Morgan Horse Handbook
The Complete Morgan Horse
(a combination of The Morgan Horse and The Morgan Horse Handbook)


Books as Illustrator
Somebody's Pony (aka Lost Pony) by Nancy Caffrey
Penny's Worth by Nancy Caffrey
Mig O' The Moor by Nancy Caffrey
Blackjack, Dreaming Of A Morgan Horse by Ellen Feld
Frosty, The Adventures Of A Morgan Horse by Ellen Feld
Rusty, The High Flying Morgan Horse by Ellen Feld
Robin, The Lovable Morgan Horse by Ellen Feld
Annie, The Mysterious Morgan Horse by Ellen Feld
Rimfire, The Barrel Racing Morgan Horse by Ellen Feld
Shadow, The Curious Morgan Horse by Ellen Feld
Sky Stallion by Alea Bushardt, Melody Clayton


Breyer Horses Models sculpted
Friesan (1992)
Misty's Twilight (1991)
Pluto (1991)
Roemer (1990)
John Henry (1988)
Sherman Morgan (1987)

A Morgan For Melinda (1980)

A Morgan For Melinda (aka A Horse For Melinda)

Doris Gates,

1980, The Viking Press

When my father first announced he was buying me a horse, I said "Thanks a lot. The last thing I want is a horse.

Few heroines in horsey lit are as hard to love as Melinda Ross. I distinctly remember the first time I read this book - with it's dreamy cover showing a beautiful horse overlaid with a little girl's head - and being wildly frustrated that the heroine was whining that she didn't want a horse. Even the explanation that follows - her dad always had a dream of buying a horse for his son, but Martin died of leukemia so he has transferred his dream to his daughter, never mind that she's a boy-crazy adolescent with no interest in equines - failed to engage my sympathy as a 7-year-old who spent her free time dreaming of the day her father would suddenly force a horse upon her. I read the book for Aranaway Ethan, the Morgan stallion who, gelded and trained, becomes the way-too-good-for-her first horse of Melinda.

Gates's writing is strong, her depictions of the little property in the beautiful Carmel Valley of California is evocative, and her characters are powerful enough to inspire strong feelings on the reader's part. As horsey lit, the book should satisfy but never quite does. Melinda is a modern and adult-oriented narrator who rarely comments on the horses or her own relationship with them, choosing instead to focus on the human relationships going on - her own with her father, her crush on a neighbor boy, her mentoree relationship with the writer Missy, etc. Against that failing are the clear, vivid scenes of Melinda with horses, from her first riding experience aboard a quiet older horse named Sam to her first rides on Ethan.

On the practical front, Gates does offer some of the most straightforward, unapologetically frank presentations of both the definition of a gelding, and the operation itself. And Melinda's slow progress from terrified to willing rider feels authentic.

I gave Ethan a touch with my heel, I heard Dad cluck to him, and in seconds we were into a slow trot. To my amazement, I wasn't bumping at all! I was riding, actually riding, for the very first time. I don't know how it happened, but suddenly I had got it all together and I was riding Ethan. He and I were going around and around on the end of that longe line as if we were glued together.

One caveat - and something of a spoiler - I dislike the dead elder books, where our Hero bonds with an older/elderly person who drops dead as a final life lesson. It's a grotesque plot device.

Horse/Other Animals

Sam - 12yo brown gelding with cream mane and tail

Mantic Peter Frost - Morgan foal

Aranaway Ethan - 7yo Morgan gelding, chestnut with white star and snip, hind socks

Oakhill's Merry Jo - liver chestnut Morgan mare with star, grand champion park horse

Fancy - white whippet

Other horse books by the author

A Filly For Melinda (sequel)

Little Vic

Sarah's Idea (donkey)

River Ranch (ranch)

North Fork (ranch)

About the author

(1901-1987) Gates grew up around Mountain View, California, first in a small town and then on a prune ranch. She worked as a children's librarian in Fresno; there is now a room named after her at Fresno Public Library.

Doris Gates papers at the University of Oregon

Works listed at above website, which I've been unable to find out more about
A Journey for Melinda:
Problems for Melinda
A Dog Named Arso
Rogue Haven
They Have Tomorrow
Trouble For Jerry
The Dog with the Too-Long Tail
The Dog Of War
The Flag on Catamount Hill
The Picture-Man's Pony

A Horse To Love
Nancy Springer
1987, Harper & Row

Erin Calahan is shy and a loner at school, but somehow when she is spotted, gazing longingly into the pastures, by the crotchety owner of a Morgan horse farm nearby, she musters the courage to speak. And eccentric Lexie Bromer unexpectedly agrees to teach her to ride. When Erin talks her father into letting her buy a horse, Lexie finds her a grey mare who Erin renames Spindrift. Erin's estatic, but reality quickly hits. Spindrift is a sensible sort of horse, and suitable as a mount, but she's also cranky, what horse people call 'mareish' and doesn't appear to have read the same books about loving, affectionate horses.

A warm feeling filled her, and she suddenly reached up and rubbed the mare's neck just behind her ears. Horses were supposed to like having their necks and withers rubbed... Spindrift put all her feet down flat and swung her head away as far as the cross ties would allow.

I confess, I've never been a fan of Springer's books - they remind me of Lynn Hall in their solid plotting, strong characterization and dispiriting insistence on stolid reality - her characters always say 'cripes' and are jerked back to earth from any flights of fancy. More to the point, this drumming in of reality seems to cut off any chance for a fluid writing style. The style is very plain and very choppy. It doesn't invite.

I do love the way that plain, matter-of-fact style gives plenty of room to solid, realistic horsekeeping chores and riding issues. I believe it's the only horse book I've ever read to show the heroine cleaning a horse's dock and udder. And the handling scenes are a balm to anyone still bitter about Alec's effortless partnership with the Black.

Spindrift saw a patch of tall grass at the end of the lane and rushed ahead. Without having to think, Erin tightened her grip on the lead so as not to lose her horse. The chain drew snug under Spindrift's chin, and Erin remembered what to do next. She gave it a jerk. "Whoa!" she ordered, pronouncing it "ho," the way Aunt Lexie did.

And, after the barn-sour mare bolts dangerously toward her stall, the author actually applies the crop;

It took ten minutes. Spindrift moved once the crop was in Erin's hand - she had seen it. But she scooted backward, danced sideways, balked and spun in her efforts to stay by the barn. Once forced near the ring, she refused the gate until Erin sent her through with a hard kick, a lick, and a yell. Erin had never fought with a horse before, and the whole process was against her way of thinking that the horse should be her friend, friend, friend.

Another thing - I love the description of Erin's bedroom:

There was a green-ribcord spread on the bed, a big Sam Savitt poster of all the horse breeds on the wall above it, a complete paperback set of all the Black Stallion stories on the bookshelf, and a herd of Breyer model horses, small ones collected over a dozen birthdays and Christmases, on the dresser...

This, plus about 500 other books, pretty much sums up my girlhood bedroom as well. Did any of the horse-mad of certain generations not have the Savitt poster?

Horses
William - red roan grade gelding (QH mix?)
Bianca/Spindrift - grey mare

Other books
Not On A White Horse (1988)
They're All Named Wildfire (1989)
Colt (1991)
The Great Pony Hassle (1993)
The Boy On A Black Horse (1994)
Sky Rider (1999)

Springer is also included in the anthology Horses, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois

About the Author
Springer was born in 1948 in NJ. Her considerable output includes mysteries, adult and science fiction, but fantasy is the clear winner.

Links
Sam Savitt poster of horse breeds
The American Morgan Horse Association
Breyer Horses website

Working Trot
Jessie Haas
1983, Greenwillow Books

Working Trot. This is a pace between the collected and the medium trot in which a horse not yet trained and ready for collected movements shows himself properly balanced and, remaining on the bit, goes forward with even, elastic steps and good hock action.
USEF Handbook

James McLeish is uncertain that he's making the right decision when he arrives at his uncle's farm. His fellow graduates from Phillips Exeter are spending their summer partying before freshman year at Harvard and Yale, but he's about to skip his banker daddy's path to a Mercedes and a tie. Over the course of a year, as he works with the Lipizzaner/Arab stallion Ghazal and the farm's other horses, he slowly absorbs the rythym of what he thinks his life will be - dedicated to the art of producing a fine, fleeting perfection in a horse.

Well-written, but not wonderful. Oddly, the very thing that makes it almost unique in horse lit is what detracts from it - the conversations between trainer and rider as James struggles to master a new discipline and his uncle struggles to keep his patience. They're fascinating, but dialogue isn't the author's forte. Much of what the characters say seems artificial. It's an unusual book overall. Mostly, horse book heroines are girls still in grade or high school, riding hunter/jumper or western, and dealing with children's issues like beating out the rich girl with the fancy horse at the big show, or worrying about having their pony sold if their algebra grades don't improve (if I'd had a pony, he'd have been a goner). James is a guy, a high school grad who's elected skip college and become a working student at the farm of a relative, who just happens to be a highly respected dressage trainer whose wife is a highly respected h/j rider. Much of the book is about how to decide what to do with your life at a time when you start realizing that every door you open slams another shut, somewhere else - your options are narrowing.

Practical Information
Tons.

Horses
Ghazal - grey Arab/Lipizzaner dressage stallion
Dynasty Two - chestnut mare jumper-turned-broodmare
Kubbadar - black pony gelding
Ginseng - brown gelding with stopping issues
Josy - Morgan mare
Windswept Rob Roy - bay Morgan gelding
Lady Peregrine - jumper mare
Brucie (dog) - collie

Social
James is tremendously worried about his social standing if he eschews banking for horsemanship. He's also very critical of the girls at the farm, deciding that one's 'sturdiness' is better than a thin girl who might get 'sloppy fat' as she ages.

Setting
Vermont.

Illustrations
Just the cover, unknown il.

Other Books by Author
Keeping Barney
A Horse Like Barney
Uncle Daney's Way

Early Chapter Books
Jigsaw Pony
Birthday Pony
Runaway Radish
Beware The Mare
A Blue For Beware
Be Well, Beware
Beware And Stogie

Picture Books
Scamper And The Horse Show
Appaloosa Zebra: A Horse Lover's Alphabet
Unbroken

Nonfiction
Safe Horse, Safe Rider
Hoofprints - Horse Poems

Author Website