Laura Nelson Baker

The Dahlbe Family Horse

Dial, 1964, illus Paul E Kennedy, 117 pp.  HB.

Our Birdie is the Dahlbe family’s work horse, who has been with them for years.  Laura is worried that
Birdie will be got rid of if the family get a new-fangled automobile.

Laura Nelson Baker (1911- ) was born in Iowa, and studied at the University of Minnesota from 1929 to 1931.  After university, she worked as a journalist, and then as the supervisor of the the manuscript reading room at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley until 1957.  Her writing career then took off, and she became a full time writer.  She wrote several children’s books, and also wrote some with the poet and children’s author Adrien Stoutenberg, with whom she lived.

Many thanks to Lisa Catz for the photograph.

Finding the book:  both books are easy to find in the US, and are not too expensive.  Neither book was published in the UK.

Sources and links:

Terri A. Wear:  Horse Stories, an Annotated Bibilography, Scarecrow Press, 1987
Laura Nelson’s papers are in the University of Minnesota Children’s Literature Research collections

Wikipedia on Adrien Stoutenberg

Cowboy Pete

Lippincott, Philadelphia & New York, 1968, 127 pp.  HB.

Charles and his family get an odd Christmas present from a stranger:  a spotted horse.  The local sheriff
thinks the horse might be stolen.  Cowboy Pete teaches Charles to ride on the horse.

Bibliography - horse books only