Season of Ponies, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

[rachelmanija]

Pamela, a lonely little girl, lives in an isolated house with her two aunts (one nice, one distant and strict). Her absentee father visits occasionally, and her mom is dead. But her life gets a lot more fun when she gets a magic amulet that enables her to meet a mysterious boy her own age and his herd of pastel ponies.

Obviously, the best part of this book is the pastel ponies. Who wouldn't want a herd of pink, blue, sunset, and sunrise-colored ponies named after clouds? I wish I'd read this book when I was nine, because I would have absolutely reveled in the pretty, pretty ponies. Probably a better title would have been The Rainbow Ponies.

Ponyboy is annoying - the book was written when it was common to portray boys being sexist as cute and funny, and that has not aged well. But like I said: pretty, pretty pink ponies! If you think you'd like that, you will certainly enjoy this book.

Season of Ponies

Comments

[rachelmanija]

I know it was a Circe reference, but there was some sentence like, "The sight of pig prints struck horror into Pamela's heart" that struck hilarity into mine.

I take it you either read this recently or recall it well?

[gehayi]

Both, actually. I remember it well from when I was about eleven, and last month I bought it for Kindle to see if it would hold up. It mostly did. Ponyboy's sexism was a bit annoying, but I've seen so much worse lately that I can't honestly complain. Also, Pamela either called him out on it or silently proved him wrong over and over again, which I don't see nearly as often nowadays.

But, as you said, the best part were the ponies themselves. I so wanted one of the ponies to return to Pamela when she got older. (I know, I know. Shades of Fog Magic.)