Shirley Rousseau Murphy
White Ghost Summer
Viking, New York, 1967, illus Barbara McGee
Dutton Juvenile, New York, 1969, pb
Melani and her family move house: although Mel longs for the country, their city
house is
near to the Ocean and overlooks a park, and it is in that park that one day
Mel sees a great
silvery stallion -
is, and there is more mystery to come.
The Sand Ponies
Viking, New York, 1967, illus Erika Weihs
The ranch in the north, and its horses, were gone, and their parents were dead, but
Tom and
Karen are still drawn to the north. When they came to the sea, where the
Sand Ponies
were running free, Karen was sure something special was waiting for them.
Shirley Rousseau Murphy is a prolific author; better known for her books about cats than about horses. She has been larded with awards from various Cat bodies in the USA, including the World’s Best Cat Literary Award in 2006 for her Joel Gray series. She lives with her husband and two cats in California.
Having graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in California, she worked as a designer and then an interior designer. It was when she was working in a library in Panama Canal Zone that she started writing. She has written several children’s books, including the two horse books White Ghost Summer and The Sand Ponies. These were based on her childhood in Long Beach, California, growing up with the horses her father trained: hunters, jumpers and pleasure horses.
White Ghost Summer was her first children’s book, and both it and The Sand Ponies have more depth and complexity than the average horse story.
Both books are easy and cheap to find in America, but neither were published in the UK.
Sources:
Harper Collins page on Shirley Rousseau Murphy
Mystery Writers of America
Shirley Rousseau Murphy’s website
Bibliography: horse books only