Twilight, Brown Sunshine, Illus MH

Misty Makes a Movie - Rand McNally & Company with 20th Century Fox, 1961, n.p. This is a "Little Golden Book" format and is based on the Marguerite Henry MISTY book. Author is not stated but I thought I'd throw this in anyhow. It is the MISTY story of the 20th Century Fox film MISTY OF CHINCOTEAGUE with color photo illustrations from the movie. An interesting collectible.

Brown Sunshine of Sawdust Valley
Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers, NY., 1996, 79 pp., illus in b&w by Bonnie Shields.

I believe this is a fictional story but it doesn't really state in the book. Molly is a young girl who loves horses and badly wants one. Her neighbour, Freddy Westover, has a Tennessee Walking horse, Strolling Joe, a show winner. When Molly's father takes her to a horse sale, she is thrilled, but the only horse they can afford is an old mare, Lady Sue. When Lady Sue proves to be in foal, Molly is excited but surprised when the expected foal turns out to be a mule. However, Molly loves the baby despite Freddy's jokes about her "show horse". Molly names the foal Brown Sunshine of Sawdust Valley. As Brown Sunshine grows and is trained, he proves to be an exceptional mule and is chosen as the King Mule in the Tennessee State contest. Even Freddy is converted and helps Molly get Brown Sunshine ready for the celebration and mule parade. A nice story with excellent illustrations. Bonnie Shields is known as "the official Tennessee Mule artist" and does a wonderful job in this book. The end paperers are in color and the cover is a full color picture of the head of Brown Sunshine.

[Info by Fran Fignar]

The Illustrated Marguerite Henry
Rand McNally & Company, NY., 1980, 128 pp. Illus Wesley Dennis, Robert Lougheed, Lynd Ward and Rich Rudish.

This is another totally factual book with data on the four major artists that illustrated Marguerite Henry's books. The major portion covers Wesley Dennis but there's lots of background on the other three as well and reproductions of black & white and color illustrations from the various books they illustrated. The format is slightly larger than the usual Marguerite Henry hard cover editions. The cover illustartion is the Wesley Dennis illustration of Sham fighting Hobgoblin from King of the Wind. The book also briefly covers Little-or-Norhint from Nottingham, Benjamin West and his Cat, Grimalkin, Muley Ears, Nobody’s Dog and The Album of Dogs: - non-horse books.

[Info by Fran Fignar]

Misty’s Twilight
Macmillan Publishing Company, NY., 1992, 143 pp., illus by Karen haus Grandpre'

This is the story of Dr. Sandy Price who grew up loving Marguerite Henry's Misty stories. On a trip to Chincoteague for Pony Penning Day, she visits what's left of the actual Beebe farm and sees many of Misty's decendants. Enamored of one mare named Sunshine, she manages to buy the pony and take it to her Alabama home. The pony is eventually bred to a son of Bold Ruler and produces a pinto filly which Sandy names Misty's Twilight.

During the next few years, Twilight is broken in (poorly by an inept trainer) and retrained by a more capable horseman. With her unusual agility, Twilight is trained as a cutting horse and becomes quite successful in local competition. When Sandy tries to place the horse with a prominent trainer, she runs into intense discrimination as Chincoteague ponies (and pintos) aren't supposed to be able to compete against quarter horses. When her trainer fails to take Twilight out to compete rather than face the taunts of other cutting people, Sandy brings Twilight home and trains her as a jumper - again quite successfully. When a lameness shows up, it is discovered that Twilight has fractured a cannon bone somewhere along the line so more jumping is out of the question. Sandy then turns Twilight over to a dressage trainer and the super talented pony goes on to third level competition winning the American Horse Shows Association Zone IV award as well as the Pinto Horse Association All-Breed Award. Truly, the story of a remarkable pony!

[Info from Fran Fignar]