Jean Slaughter Doty is an excellent writer, and is well worth seeking out.  Her best known book in the UK is Can I Get There By Candlelight?, a time-slip story about a girl who moves next door to a derelict estate.  When she and her pony go through the gate between her house and the estate, she is transported to the estate in its glory, a hundred years ago.  The book was printed as a paperback by Scholastic and is reasonably easy to find.

None of her other books were published in the UK, but they are very well worth finding, and some of them are reasonably priced, even when you factor in shipping from the USA.  I haven’t read all of the books, by a long way, but I am particularly fond of the twosome:  Summer Pony and Winter Pony.  These are about Ginny and her pony Mokey and are both lovely reads.  American books held on to the idea of illustrating books longer than the UK, and these are beautifully illustrated by Ted Lewin (Winter Pony), and Sam Saviit (Summer Pony).  Summer Pony and Winter Pony have now been reprinted, so are available from Amazon.  

The Monday Horse is the hardest to find of her books.  Both it and The Crumb (which is the easiest to find) are about abuses in the showing world.  They’re aimed at an older audience than the Mokey books, and are a darker read.  Yesterday’s Horses is also something of a dark read.  A girl finds an abandoned foal, but this pales into insignificance at first as a fatal virus ravages the local horse community.

Under her maiden name, Jean Slaughter, Jean wrote several pony care and riding instruction books.  

She is married to the cartoonist Roy Doty, and according to the (possibly rather out of date now) flap of my copy of  Winter Pony, lives in Connecticut with her husband, children and numerous horses, dogs and Siames cats.  She has hunted in England and Ireland, and breeds ponies.  She has been a show judge at numerous shows, including the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden.

Links

For such a well-regarded author, there is remarkably little on the net about her.  If you need to read any reviews to encourage you to seek out her books, try www.ponydom.com, where there are sections on most of her books.

Thanks:  to Susan Bourgeau and Dawn Harrison for all their help with the photographs.

Summer Pony

Collier Books, New York, 1973, illus Sam Savitt

Macmillan, London, 1973

Scholastic pb, 1973

Reprinted 1976

Random Horse, 2008, illus Ruth Sanderson

Ginny rents a pony for the summer:  she is desperately excited by the idea, but when the pony turns up, Mokey
is thin and frankly, a disappointment.

Winter Pony

Macmillan, New York, 1975, illus Ted Lewin

Scholastic pb, 1975

Random House, 2008, illus Ruth Sanderson

Ginny teaches her pony Mokey to pull a sleigh.   Mokey has more surprises for Ginny than just being
able to pull a sleigh, however.

Gabriel
Macmillan, New York, 1974, illus Ted Lewin

Not a pony book, it's a dog book about a girl and a Keeshond she rescues,

only to discover that the pup is a valuable show dog.

The Crumb

Greenwillow Books, New York, 1976

Weekly Reader Children’s Book Club, 1976

Scholastic pb, 1978

Cindy gets a summer job at a smart stables, but soon finds herself running up against the seedy side of
winning in the show ring.

The Monday Horses

Pocket Books, 1979

Greenwillow Books, New York, 1984

Cassie’s Arab stallion Toby needs to recover from an injury.  Cassie works at a local stable
in return for Toby’xs board, and soon meets the nasty side of the show ring.

Can I Get There By Candlelight?

Macmillan, New York, 1980, illus Ted Lewin
Scholastic,pb, 1980

Scholastic pb, 1982 (UK)

Time slip story:  Gail rides her pony through a gate and meets Hilary, who is from another, earlier time.

The Valley of the Ponies

Macmillan, New York, 1982, illus Dorothy Haskell Chuhhy

Scholastic pb, 1982

Jennifer boards a pony during the summer and manages to rescue a herd of ponies.

Dark Horse

William Morrow, 1983, illus Dorothy Haskell Chuhhy

Scholastic pb, 1983

Abby works on Sandy, and sees that he is quite a horse after she finds him jumping out of
every corral.  Although he loves hunting and goes like a train, it is quite a different matter
when she tries to jump him in shows.

If Wishes Were Horses
Macmillan, New York, 1984

Stephanie and her sister Cam are struggling on their own to keep their horse farm going after their father’s
death.  Not the cheeriest of reads, it must be said.

Yesterday’s Horses

Macmillan, New York, 1985

Kelly finds an orphaned foal in the mountains:  he looks like prehistoric horses she’s seen pictures of.
Kelly’s mother, a vet, is having a terrible time as a mysterious virus is ravaging the local horses.  There
seems to be no cure.  The only animal left untouched is the foal, and Kelly starts to wonder...

Bibliography