Conformation Faults

Pine Hollow #5

by Bonnie Bryant

While Callie Forester recovers from a recent betrayal by a close friend, Ben Marlow wonders what secrets Carole Hanson is hiding since she has become obsessed with a certain horse and has been ignoring her friends and her own horse. Original.

Genres: Young Adult, Horses, Animals, Childrens, Fiction

272 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 5, 1999

About the author

American author of children's books. She is best known for creating the intermediate horse book series The Saddle Club, which was published from October 1988 until April 2001. The Saddle Club chronicled the adventures of thirteen-year-old Lisa Atwood and twelve-year-olds Stephanie "Stevie" Lake and Carole Hanson. The series was static in time; the girls never aged in 101 books, 7 special editions, and 3 Inside Stories.

Bonnie Bryant also wrote two spin-off series: Pony Tails, aimed at beginning readers, and Pine Hollow, aimed at teenage readers. The 16 Pony Tails books followed the lives of eight-year-olds May Grover, Corey Takamura, and Jasmine James. Pine Hollow featured Carole, Lisa, Stevie, and their new friends in a series set four years after The Saddle Club. Unlike The Saddle Club, Pine Hollow conformed to a realistic timeline. The 17 books took place over the span of less than a year. Later a television show called The Saddle Club, based on the books, was filmed in Australia.

Bonnie Bryant wrote at least 38 The Saddle Club books and 2 Pine Hollow books herself; after that they were taken over by a team of ghostwriters, a common practice in long-running children's book series. Ghostwriters for the Saddle Club and Pine Hollow books included Caitlin Macy (sometimes credited as Caitlin C. Macy), Catherine Hapka, Sallie Bissell, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, Helen Geraghty, Tina deVaron, Cat Johnston, Minna Jung, and Sheila Prescott-Vessey.

Bonnie Bryant is also the author of many novelizations of movies, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Karate Kid, and Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, written under her married name, B.B. Hiller. She also collaborated in the ghostwriting of The Baby-sitters Club Super Special #14: BSC in the USA, published under the name of its creator, Ann M. Martin.

Bonnie Bryant was born and raised in New York City. She met her husband, Neil W. Hiller, in college, where they both worked on the campus newspaper. They had two sons, Emmons Hiller and Andrew Hiller. Neil Hiller died in 1989. Many of Bonnie's books are dedicated to him.
***from wikipedia.org

Reviews

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was good, but it could have been better; I would have liked for one of the subplots to be resolved by the book's end, but it wasn't. Hopefully, future installments will do the job.

[Danielle Booey · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is so much drama in Pine Hollow. It’s like one summer apart halted Stevie, Carole, and Lisa’s ability to communicate.

There’s secrets, and lies, and betrayal, but also just heightened emotions and friends needing each other but not understanding how to be there for each other with everything going on. Prancer, Samson, Stevie meddling, Callie’s struggles, whatever is up with AJ, not sure it is drugs but who knows at this point, Carole’s grades. It is all going to come to a head in some horrible way before it gets better. But each book ends on such a cliff hanger that I’m not sure it will happen before the last book in the series. Oh well. Time to put in for book 6.

[Stefanie Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carole is the bad girl in this book. She is obsessed with a new horse, but she is neglecting her own horse. She is neglecting the boy she likes. She is neglecting her friends. There was a slight lack of resolution in this book, but the overall premise was interesting and a bit dramatic. Carole is one of my favorite literary characters in any of the books that I read as a child, but she was being a bit of a hag in this book.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don’t like Carole represented in a bad light ever. I’m too committed to these characters to leave this series until it’s finished, but it’s all just secrets with not resolution and nothing moves quickly enough.

[Zaza (Mackenzie) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Callie gets into trouble when an old friend comes to visit.

[Karo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good, but because it's #5, I was SUPER confused :)