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Midnight Moon
In this sequel to Silver Birch, Connie makes a desperate bid with a sadistic horseman that she will either tame that man's mistreated horse or else forfeit her own mare, Silver Birch.
176 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1941
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 18, 2025
I was going to give this three stars, which would've been the most I'd ever given a Dorothy Lyons, but the last 50 pages were so bad that the third star fizzled and died.
This is the second book of a quartet about the improbably named Connemera McGuire and her horses. I'd read the third book, Golden Soverign back in the 1990s, so I was curious about the preceding books.
I should've stayed curious.
This book is a mess. I know it's aimed for 12 year old girls, but events happened so fast that it was hard to figure out what was going on. Even Lyons couldn't keep things straight. Midnight Moon is described as a Thoroughbred, but by the last 50 pages, she's suddenly transformed into an American Saddlebred. Like other Lyons books, Midnight Moon is a problem horse, and the girl needs to figure her out. The answers to her problem were painfully obvious.
Connemera's mother gets cancer, but the word "cancer" is never used. It's baffling. I guess it was considered a swear word in 1941 (the year this was published). The Mayo Clinic is called "Mayo's". I wonder if "Mayo Clinic" were considered swear words, too.
Connemera joins a drill team. Before the cavalry was disbanded after WWII, junior drill teams seemed to be a fad; a fun activity to train future cavalry soldiers. So, we get descriptions of drill practices. Big tip for all writers -- you CAN'T write about drills effectively unless you have diagrams. There aren't any diagrams here. You're on your own. And the drill team had basically nothing to do with the plot. It was just filler in a book with too much going on to begin with.
And the excreable excuses for illustrations! Most of Lyons' books were illustrated by the late, great Wesley Dennis. Usually, they were the only good things about the book. Here, there's another illustrator who draws ugly horses and people. He didn't read the text, so makes a draft horse look like a Thoroughbred. The bad guy is dressed in good riding clothes, although he's described as poor and a horrible rider.
Lyons assumes that everyone has read the first book in the series. There is a hasty, but really incomplete backstory. People and horses were never introduced. They just appear and disappear.
If you really want to dip your toes into this mess, the book is currently up on The Open Library, but I don't know for how much longer. The first book in the series, Silver Birch is not there.
This is the second book of a quartet about the improbably named Connemera McGuire and her horses. I'd read the third book, Golden Soverign back in the 1990s, so I was curious about the preceding books.
I should've stayed curious.
This book is a mess. I know it's aimed for 12 year old girls, but events happened so fast that it was hard to figure out what was going on. Even Lyons couldn't keep things straight. Midnight Moon is described as a Thoroughbred, but by the last 50 pages, she's suddenly transformed into an American Saddlebred. Like other Lyons books, Midnight Moon is a problem horse, and the girl needs to figure her out. The answers to her problem were painfully obvious.
Connemera's mother gets cancer, but the word "cancer" is never used. It's baffling. I guess it was considered a swear word in 1941 (the year this was published). The Mayo Clinic is called "Mayo's". I wonder if "Mayo Clinic" were considered swear words, too.
Connemera joins a drill team. Before the cavalry was disbanded after WWII, junior drill teams seemed to be a fad; a fun activity to train future cavalry soldiers. So, we get descriptions of drill practices. Big tip for all writers -- you CAN'T write about drills effectively unless you have diagrams. There aren't any diagrams here. You're on your own. And the drill team had basically nothing to do with the plot. It was just filler in a book with too much going on to begin with.
And the excreable excuses for illustrations! Most of Lyons' books were illustrated by the late, great Wesley Dennis. Usually, they were the only good things about the book. Here, there's another illustrator who draws ugly horses and people. He didn't read the text, so makes a draft horse look like a Thoroughbred. The bad guy is dressed in good riding clothes, although he's described as poor and a horrible rider.
Lyons assumes that everyone has read the first book in the series. There is a hasty, but really incomplete backstory. People and horses were never introduced. They just appear and disappear.
If you really want to dip your toes into this mess, the book is currently up on The Open Library, but I don't know for how much longer. The first book in the series, Silver Birch is not there.
December 8, 2008
This is a sequel to Silver Birch. The girl in Silver Birch repeats her success in training a horse that was abused by it's owner. She wins a bet and the horse.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews