Amy Brown got her first pony unexpectedly. Her father was bitten by the horse bug and bought himself a horse, Poncho. When he started to compete, he needed a horse box. When he found one, the seller offered him a pony to go with it, so Amy, at the age of five, got Twinks. She carried on riding, and competed in regional and national showjumping events. She was a keen devotee of the English pony story, particularly Ruby Ferguson’s Jill, and when she gave up riding and took up writing, pony books were what she decided to write. She described Jill’s Gymkhana as “the book that changed her life,” as she read it so often, and based her own books on it. She loved “its sense of humour, weird 1950s references to Bing Crosby, and brilliant line drawings.”
Her series Jade is about a girl who starts off her life as a rider in difficult circumstances, but manages to overcome them and become a successful rider.
Finding the books: in print, but not easily available in the UK. Expensive large print editions are available on Amazon, but other than that, the only option is importing them, and that is not cheap.
Sources and Links:
Amy Brown on the Christchurch Kids blog
More on Amy Brown on the
Christchurch Kids blog
Jade and the Stray
HarperCollins Publishers, Auckland, New Zealand, 2010, 240 pp.
Jade has moved to Flaxton to live with her grandfather. Her mother is dead, and her
father is in prison. Jade escapes
her miseries by thinking about ponies, and then
one turns up in the pound. Jade knows she has to save the stray.
Jade at the Champs
HarperCollins Publishers, Auckland, New Zealand, 2011
Jade has her own pony; her Dad’s out of prison and has a job in Flaxton and life
looks good. She’s made the junior
team, and her coach is Olympic gold medallist, Michaela
Lewis. But then her pony, Pip, goes down with laminitis,
and so Jade has to ride Dorian,
who is beautiful but temperamental. And all this while Jade is worrying about whether
Pip
will ever recover.
Amy Brown
Bibliography -
Jade and the Hunters
HarperCollins Publishers, Auckland, New Zealand, 2011
When Jade offered to take the worst behaved pony at the Championships home, it seemed
a brave decision. Now
that the pony’s back home, Jade is too nervous even to get on
the five year old monster, Taniwha. Perhaps Zoe is
right when she suggests that
hunting is just what the pony needs. Jade goes to spend the winter holidays on the
Deaths’ sheep station, hoping it’s what she needs to get her confidence back.
Jade’s Summer of Horses
HarperCollins Publishers, Auckland, New Zealand, 2012, 256
pp.
Jade needs to find a new home for Pip, and school difficult Taniwha. Good news comes
when she hears Becca’s
Aunt is looking for a bombproof beginner’s pony for her oceanside
riding school. She asks Jade to come and spend
the summer there helping out and learning
about endurance riding. It seems like heaven. Unfortunately, that’s
exactly what
a property developer thinks. Jade is determined to save the land for the ponies.
Pony Tales
Jade and the Stray
Jade at the Champs
Jade and the Hunters
Jade’s Summer of Horses