Hippomania
I know: You would never have dreamed that I would blog about pony books. But I am the father of a girl who loves horses, dreams about horses, thinks about horses instead of math or does math only via horse word problems, and whose attention can be grabbed immediately by seeing the words “horse” or “pony” on the cover of a book. And that explains why, one afternoon, in the midst of reading some literary criticism, I started laughing.
Geoffrey Trease’s Tales Out of School is an opinionated, fun, and often quite insightful survey and critique of young adult fiction up until the 1960s. Along the way, Trease points out certain elements that show up too often in children’s literature and urges authors to try something new instead of trotting out the old.
Have you ever noticed how many twins there are in children’s literature? Trease has. More than that, he has wondered why — and the answer he gives I find entirely convincing: Though the author has probably never even thought about it, he or she likely wanted to have two children — frequently two girls — who are exactly the same age (which means they can’t be non-twin siblings, of course) and who get to share a bedroom or take vacations together (unlike neighbors or friends).
In the midst of surveying what are often called “holiday books” — books that center on activities that take place outside of the school year — Trease again urges authors to greater creativity. Where should an author turn? Well, says Trease, not to the stables, at any rate.
Let me say quickly, before the riding-crops of indignant enthusiasts rain upon my shoulders, that I have nothing against the pony story as such. It is pleasant to see a generation transferring its enthusiasm from high-powered machines to some of the most attractive of the domestic animals…. That the fantasy of possessing a pony (or two, or three) had become something like an obsession in many children’s minds could in those days be seen from any book department. Typical titles were Wish for a Pony, I Wanted a Pony, I Had Two Ponies, Three Ponies and Shannon, A Pony for Jean, Another Pony for Jean, More Ponies for Jean, and (highest bid so far) Six Ponies. The main thing was to get the word into your title — even if, like the ingenious Mary Treadgold, you called your book No Ponies. (The young hippomaniacs knew perfectly well that the ponies would turn up somewhere in the book.) Almost any book, irrespective of quality, was sure of a considerable sale if the title included that magic word. Some children would have demanded Shakespeare’s Richard III if had been put in the right dust-jacket and renamed A Pony for Richard (142).
June 3rd, 2013 at 4:30 am
Yes, A Pony for Richard would have been a popular title. Funny stuff.