I Want a Pony (Pony Pals No. 1) | Jeanne Betancourt | a wonderful, powerful, realistic series

I Want a Pony (Pony Pals No. 1) | Jeanne Betancourt | The Equine Experience

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I Want a Pony (Pon...

	I Want a Pony (Pony Pals No. 1) Jeanne Betancourt Scholastic Paperbacks, 1994 - 112 pages average customer review:based on 22 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

a wonderful, powerful, realistic series

I love this whole series. I'm a mom, and my daughter got them as hand-me-downs. I run around now recommending them to parents of [..] girls. (I think boys might find them annoying bcs there are no boys except rowdy ones, really.)

Each book has a conflict--a realistic one. And a painful one for the characters. Conflict is the essence of drama, and the quality of the conflict is important. These are great. They could happen in real life--they DO happen in real life. Someone wants a pony but can't have one; someone has trouble in school even though she works hard; grownups make decisions that take the fun away from children.

Each book also has a terrific way to resolve the problem. The girls develop a technique that helps them figure out how to solve their problem, how to change the grownups' minds. They each contribute an idea, they refine and modify one another's contributions, they make realistic assessments of what grownups would do. It doesn't always go smoothly, but the girls successfully act to get at least some of what they want.

Things always come out fine in the end, but even a skeptical grownup like me would have to say that the solution is believable. It isn't just the grownups giving the kids everything they want because the author can make them.

Another thing I really like is that the author does not gloss over the work and responsibility that is involved w/ owning a pony. And yet the books are never preachy.

I also like that the girls DO turn to grownups when they're problem solving or when they need help. They don't assume that they have to do everything themselves (the way Harry Potter does, and the way many OTHER kid-adventure books do). And yet, the girls take a very active role in trying to change their world. A wonderful balance, really, and lots of sneakily delivered (and not preachy) lessons in how the world works, and how to influence people, and how to be responsible and trustworthy. (I want to stress tha twhile the books model a very genuine view of how the world works, and how grownups think, they are NOT preachy.)

Plus, they're fun. They're nicely written--not terribly difficult. But the characters are well drawn (even the rowdy boys, who grow more fleshed-out over the life of the series). The grownups are believable. The emotions are vivid.

It's just an entire wonderful series. Jeanne Betancourt has done a phenomenal job.

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The Equine Experience

This book series is the cause of my Horse-Love. It's a series about three girls, Pam, Anna and Lulu (PAL) and their Ponies Lightning, Acorn and Snowwhite, who live in a town called little Wiggins and use their very sopecial Pony Pal Trail to reach each others houses (Anna lives next-door to Lulu, and Pam lives at the other end of Pony Pal Trail) and they're basically pretty average ten-year-old girls who have many adventures and have a lot of fun. Sometimes it's scary, like when Snowwhite got lost and ran away - in a snow storm that is, sometimes it's sad, like when their Pony Friend Winston died, sometimes it's beautiful, like when a Pony named Beauty had a Foal/or when the girls hand-reared a Foal called Baby (later named Lucky by his new owner) and sometimes it's just plain wonderful, like when the Pony Pals learned how to Ride Western, or when Anna and Acorn did Carriage Driving (believe you me, it's VERY FUN!). The beginning is Lulu moving to Wiggins, meeting Pam and Anna, saving Snowwhite and later she and Anna have to actually buy their Ponies, and the start of the Pony Pals and the climax of the series will reduce you to tears if you're a big softie like me...so, all in all I say: Thank You Mrs. Jeanne Betancourt!

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The Pony Pals

The Pony Pals
By: Dalit Smolsky.

I've read all the books but here's an introduction.

Lulu, Anna, and Pam are girls that are best friends that are not just friends but they're pals. The ride their horses on a pony pal trail as they call it. They love riding and they have fun on barn sleepovers and camping.
Lulu is a girl that has no mother because she died when Lulu was 4; but has a father that went to the Amazon Jungle to study some kind of animal. Pam was a girl that had a mother who was a riding instructor and her dad was a horse veterinarian. Anna had a mom that worked in a diner and had made famous brownies.
They all rode their horses. Anna rode her horse named Acorn, Pam rode her horse named Lightning; and Lulu rode her horse Snow white.
The pony pals solved problems and many mysteries. They didn't give up since they had The Pony Pal Power as they called it. The last part of their adventures was when they came to their adults friends house and her horse died. Anna never gave up on him and she cried many hours. Anna rode Acorn on the carriage on a festival called the winter festival. There was also another festival. The festival had loads of fun. The people had rollercoaster's and best of all kids had horseback riding rides. They all had fun.
Anna didn't think that Acorn would react that good.

I recommend this book to people who like or love horses. This book is all about horses. I would rate it at a rate of 5 stars out of 5 stars. I loved this book.

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Cool!

This series is great for horse lovers below ten, but I would advise over-ten kids to read The Saddle Club and Thoroughbred series'. All in all, good series.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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