The Winged Colt of Casa Mia, by Betsy Byars

[rachelmanija]

Betsy Byars was a very well-known writer of children's books when I was a kid (the 70s-80s). She wrote The Pinballs, The Cybil War, The Nightswimmers, Summer of the Swans, The Midnight Fox, etc. If you're around my age, you probably remember seeing her books even if you didn't read them. They were out of print for a while, but now many of them have been reissued as ebooks.

This one was written in 1973, the year of my birth. Unusually for a kids’ book, it’s narrated (in first person, no less) by an adult.

Uncle Coot, the narrator, is a former horse riding stuntman who retired after a tragic accident in which his beloved stunt horse was killed. (All the bits where he talks about stunt riding are very much “some things change for the better,” even though I don’t think that was Byars’ intent.) His young nephew, Charles, who is dumped on him by his mother because she’s not interested in being a mom, hero-worships Coot and wants to learn everything about riding, despite a near total lack of aptitude. Coot is not happy about any of this.

When a winged colt is born, Charles falls in love with it. But they have no way of teaching it to fly…

While the general arc of the story is predictable, the individual events are not. I expected this to be much more about Charles and the winged horse than it actually is; it’s more about Charles and Coot’s relationship as catalyzed by the winged horse. It’s a good story and the horse doesn’t die, but I wanted more human-animal bonding and flying horse coolness than I got. For a story about a flying horse, it’s distinctly on the understated side.

The Winged Colt of Casa Mia

Comments

[sartorias]

I think I might have read that, then promptly forgot it. Betsy Byars never "stuck" with me.

[rachelmanija]

I think I may have as well.

[cloudsinvenice]

I was so surprised to see that title pop up on my flist! I used to get it our of the library a lot when I was a kid, though I don't remember it well - I'd certainly forgotten that it's from the uncle's POV, but I was left with a general sense that it was good on the human relationship angle. Well, looks like it's time to finally get my own (ebook) copy. :)

[cloudsinvenice]

Oh, and I remember reading a lot of her books growing up - we had The Midnight Fox for novel work in P6, and The Cartoonist, The TV Kid (the gory details of treating someone who's been bitten by a snake remain vivid), The Eighteenth Emergency and Cracker Jackson all stuck in my mind.

[kore]

Summer of the Swans is great -- I have a beautifully illustrated hardback. Pinballs and TV Kid were great too. I have adjacent memories of some of these books being adapted for TV (NOT afterschool specials, something else) or a TV program where a guy would draw/paint a scene from the book while a voiceover narrated it.

[copperfyre]

Ooh, I hadn't thought about this book in years! I too remember being disappointed that it didn't include more horse, especially given that the horse in question had wings.

[rachelmanija]

Nobody ever rides the flying horse!

[minnaway]

Betsy Byars! We owned The Cybil War with her playing the piano on the cover, and I remember reading The Pinballs as well. What a blast from the past.

[kore]

OT but do you remember a book about a kids' swimming team called the Salamanders, and one of them needs glasses but can't afford them or something, and she drops them during a meet and dives in to get them and something something disqualified....I thought for SO LONG this was Nightswimmers, but it isn't, and trying to find "YA novel Salamanders swim team" never brought anything up. It was right around the early to mid eighties time period, I think.

[cofax7]

I must have read that at some point, because it's right in my wheelhouse and the name is familiar, but I recall nothing of it.

[staranise]

I REMEMBER THIS. Specifically because in grade 4, I was disappointed with the lack of horse, and wrote a 24-page story about a flying horse to amend the lack of it.