Bessie Holland Heck

Cactus Kevin

World, 1965, illus Lorence Bjorklund, 157 pp.

“Kevin has several mishaps after his family moves to their new ranch, and he fears that he will never earn the
right to own a horse, especially a horse like the palomino Jim.”

Bessie Holland Heck has written several ranch themed books for children: two of them, as far as I’m aware, are horse books.  I’ve not been able to track any biographical information down about the author, so if anyone can help, I would be deeply grateful!

Many thanks to Lisa Catz the photographs.

Finding the book: Neither book is expensive, though Cactus Kevin is the easier of the two to find.  Neither were published in the UK.

Sources and links:

Terri A. Wear:  Horse Stories, an Annotated Bibilography, Scarecrow Press, 1987

The De Grummond collection hold some of Bessie Holland Heck’s papers

Bibliography - horse books only

Golden Arrow

Scribner, New York, 1981, illus Charles Robinson, 136 pp.

“Randy offers to work on his grandfather’s farm, so that he can earn enough money to buy a motorcycle, but
after spending some time with the pregnant palomino mare Goldie, he decides that he’d rather run a palomino
horse ranch than be a professional motorcycle racer.”