Katy's Pony Challenge

Katy's Ponies #4

by Victoria Eveleigh

The fourth heartwarming story in Victoria Eveleigh's KATY'S EXMOOR PONIES series, perfect for fans of pony and animal stories, Pippa Funnell, Stacy Gregg and Lauren St John.

Katy's life has never been busier. What with riding Jacko, keeping Trifle in shape and trying to tame her cheeky foal, Tinkerbell, Katy certainly has her hands full! New neighbour, James, is eager to help but doesn't always seem to save Katy much time! Things are just as hectic for her best friend, Alice, who has a brilliant and demanding show jumping pony. So when Katy hears about a new sport called horse agility, she wonders if it could help her solve all kinds of problems . . .

105 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 6, 2015

About the author

I was brought up in London, but I always longed to live in the country and have lots of animals - especially horses. Well, dreams do come true because I now live on an Exmoor livestock farm with my husband, Chris. Besides dogs, cats and riding horses, we keep Exmoor Horn sheep, North Devon cattle and Exmoor ponies.
Our daughter, Sarah, is now grown up, but when she was a girl she had an Exmoor pony called Tinkerbell. Their eventful partnership inspired me to write my first stories: a trilogy about a girl and an Exmoor pony growing up together on an Exmoor hill farm. The 'Katy's Exmoor' trilogy was illustrated by Chris, and we self-published it under the imprint Tortoise Publishing. We also published a book called Midnight on Lundy.
Publishing my own books was hard work, so I was delighted when Orion Children's Books took me on in 2011. The 'Katy's Ponnies Trilogy' has now been re-written and updated with expert editorial guidance, and it was published by Orion in 2012 as 'Katy's Wild Foal', 'Katy's Champion Pony' and 'Katy's Pony Surprise'. The books have a great deal of new content, including author's notes, new inside illustrations by Chris and beautiful cover illustrations by Angelo Rinaldi. 'Midnight on Lundy' was also republished, as 'A Stallion Called Midnight'.
I have just written three brand new books for Orion: 'Joe and the Hidden Horseshoe', 'Joe and the Lightning Pony' and 'Joe and the Race to Rescue'. Horses and ponies are still at the heart of these stories, and although a boy is the main character the stories haven't been written specifically for boys. I'm a firm believer that stories with horses and ponies in them shouldn't be exclusively for pony-mad girls!
My books are full of the things I love: horses and ponies, the countryside, farming and people. My Facebook Page is Victoria Eveleigh Author. Please 'Like' it and take a look. I post lots of interesting things about horses and books there, as well as news about my books and our animals here on the farm.
I really like hearing from readers, visiting schools and giving talks, so do get in touch!

Reviews

[KSena · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will say, I rather like this pony series, what with the descriptions of Exmoor and the lives of the wild Exmoorponies.

In this one I also learned about the sport of horse agility! It's not a thing here in Sweden, but it was quite interesting to read about. Sounds cool, to be honest!

But what I reallY REALLY appreciated in this particular book was the introduction of James. A autistic kid that loves horses and immediately falls in love with Katy's horse Caramel. A beautiful friendship is born, and Victoria writes the character James so beautifully!!! His autism is not a bit deal in the story, it's there and at times his eye for detail even helps. I really liked reading the parts with him and his mother Olivia. Really nice!

So, I'd say Victoria did it again. A nice horse-book with some extras that me as a mom could enjoy! Even if the ending was a bit... sugarsweet, but hey. That was expected.

[Nayuleska · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an absolutely heartwarming read horse read from Victoria, with lessons of frustration and jealousy explored by Katy. I kept laughing every time she got in a mood, because I saw my younger self in her (minus the whole having 3 horses thing. I didn't have 1, certainly not 3! For the record I didn't want one, I prefer admiring them from afar.

Katy learnt a lot about horses – she discovers she doesn't know it all, especially on how to bring up a foal – and I learn a lot from her. The mistakes she made made sense to me when they were pointed out, but until then I didn't think she was doing a lot wrong. She is desperate to prove she can do it all herself, but a fact of life is none of us are perfect, or have all the skills we need to do tasks, such as caring for different types of horses. Katy has to ask for help, which is hard to do but in the end it's worth it. She manages to help a wonderfully sweet boy with extra needs, which softened her frustrations.

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review on my blog Nayu's Reading Corner http://nayusreadingcorner.blogspot.co...