Nightmare

Saddle Club Super Edition #6

by Bonnie Bryant

Carole Hansen's father has been sent away on a secret Marine Corps assignment. She worries about him constantly. When a fatal equine illness strikes a neighboring stable, The Saddle Club girls have 45 days to wonder, and worry about, whether the disease will reach Pine Hollow, and whether any of their horses could be in danger. Carole secretly decides to hide one horse from the affected stable and care for it herself.Meanwhile, Lisa Atwood is trying not to let her competitive impulses take over. But a classmate has challenged her for the position of valedictorian. Will Lisa's compulsion to always be the best turn the classroom into a nightmare? And Stevie has found a mysterious place in the woods. Is she on the trail of an Underground Railroad route? Or is she chasing after nothing?

Genres: Young Adult, Horses, Childrens

208 pages, Paperback

First published September 8, 1997

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

[Kerri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nightmare is (for me) the saddest Saddle Club book. Delilah, a beloved stable horse, returns to Pine Hollow after being mated to a stallion. Within a day or so that stallion is dead from Swamp Fever (also known as equine infectious anemia or EIA) and Pine Hollow is in quarantine, due to Delilah's exposure. The disease is transferred from blood to blood contact, so basically a horse-fly (or flies) could have spread a disease known to wipe out entire stables. It's tense stuff, especially because this is a situation that does happen in real life.
Alongside this, Stevie develops an obsession with a book, Lisa's control issues and unhinged perfectionism start to take over again, and Carole struggles while her father is deployed on a classified mission. It's Lisa and Carole who face the biggest risks here - Lisa's struggles, which have veered dangerously close to full blown anorexia in the past (something I'm pleased doesn't go away after just one or two books) are serious, and she is back sliding in some the progress she has made in regards to her need to be the best, at all things, at all times.
For Carole it's her vulnerability that sticks out - without her father, unsure where he is or if he is safe, she feels lost and alone, and the threat of Swamp Fever sends her mentally spinning. When Delilah inevitably begins displaying symptoms for the illness Carole takes foolish yet understandable action.

This is another one that will always make me cry at least a little. I suppose it examines people in situations that makes them feel powerless. In Lisa's case it's her mind that's causing the trouble, but that doesn't make the dangers any less real. And Carole is once again confronted with the reality of illness, death and that some things can't be changed. All of this is handled in a very child friendly way of course, and I found it a gut wrenching and helpful read when I was younger. Now, I'm actually impressed at how well it holds up. You probably need to be familiar with the series for it to have the same emotional impact, to know about Carole's mother dying from cancer, that Delilah was the horse she rode in the earlier books etc, but it's all well done and remains a firm favourite.
I should add it isn't all so heavy - there are moments of fun and friendship as well.

[Kingfan30 · Rating 3 out of 5]

took this book to India with me as a holiday read. I have never read any from this series and had I found them when I was a kid I would have read them all. As an adult i thought it was a good read and it only took me a day, I liked the fact I could pick it up without reading any of the others but could imagine them being tedious if they were all written with the same amount of information about the characters. It was an informative book with some riding tips so can see why horse mad girls would love them.

[Dark-Draco · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't remember reading this one when I was younger. The story was ok, but I hate it when animal stories have to be sad. Why? So that spoilt it for me. As an adult, I could see a few inconsistencies between the story and what would happen in real life, but I probably would have liked it as a child.

[Rachel Bernard]

That some things are not right