Track Record

Pine Hollow #16

by Bonnie Bryant

Everyone makes mistakes!

Carole Hanson is back at Pine Hollow full-time, so she can spend as many hours as she wants with the horses she loves. And that's perfect, because it's a great way to mend a broken heart. Who knew Cam would turn out to be a total rat? Carole sure didn't. For now, she's sticking with horses. While she may not be able to change the past, Carole's determined not to make the same mistake again.

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

224 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published February 13, 2001

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

[Stefanie Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carole's boyfriend turned out to have the emotional depth of a sack of dead moths, which came as no surprise to me, but sure did to her. She is back at Pine Hollow, spending all of her time with the horses. I like the return to the stable, but I didn't like that she had to experience a trash guy. That's something that most of us go through at least once. This may possibly be my favorite book out of the series.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finally everyone's moving in the right direction. I'm incredibly disappointed in the wrap-up to George's arc: There isn't one. This is all you get. Does he really understand what he did was wrong? Is he on probation? Therapy? Does he just disappear as an avoidance tactic, to start all over in some other place with some other girl?

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lose ends finally tied up with Carole and Ben, and Callie and George.

This book and the previous one stopped feeling like children’s/YA fiction with some scary themes.

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

Carole is back at Pine Hollow. She needs it too. After Cam turned out to be a big mistake. She's determinded it won't ever happen again.