Stallion in the Stable

Animal Ark: Summer Special #6

by Lucy Daniels

Mandy and James are really looking forward to their holiday at the Kincraig Trekking Centre. A whole week of riding in the beautiful Scottish Highlands! But the owner of the centre is worried about the Highland Pony stud on the other side of the mountain. It looks like the ponies are being mistreated. Then one of the stallions goes missing...

Genres: Animals, Horses, Childrens

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Lucy Daniels is the collective name for the writing team that created the bestselling children's book series Animal Ark, many of the books are also published under the name of the series creator, Ben M. Baglio.

Reviews

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, that was incredibly disappointing.

In one sense, it's a shame to give this just one star, because it is a lively and fast-moving read. However, a kid steals the neighbor's pony and gets away with it. That's not how the real world works. The law, even in Scotland, doesn't make any distinction in horse thefts. It doesn't matter how the real owner is treating the pony -- the theif is usually arrested and charged with the crime ... even if the case is dropped later, there is still legal hell to pay, even if the judge only decides to give the theif a slap on the wrist.

Now, Mandy and James did steal a goose destined soon for the chop way back in Goose on the Loose, but that was a different matter. The owner never really cared about the goose, despite his histronics. The goose just wasn't worth much money, so the police wouldn't have cared about dealing with such a minor crime.

But that pony was worth thousands of pounds. That changes things.

The story also never resolves. Yes, there was an indication about how things would go, but I've seen on the news time and time again about animals being returned to cruel owners despite video evidence, despite witnesses, despite the state of the animals when found. Just this week, an emaciated pony was returned to an owner in Howell, Michigan, despite the reports of the rescue group that took the pony in. Oh, by the way, the pony had a pasture mate who died from malnutrition and neglect.

Real author Andrea Abbott should've known better, since she usually was one of the better ghostwriters in the Animal Ark Universe. Yes, all writers eventually throw in a clunker, but Jesus Christ. How the hell did this get by the Howell legal department?

Animal Ark's American publisher, Scholastic, passed on this book. Unlike most of the other books they passed on, I can see why they bailed on this.

Ann Baum did a terrible job on the illustrations. She really just doesn't seem to give a toss anymore. She still has no clue as to how to draw a pony.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good book for horse lovers like me out there. I loved the action and the story plot itself is really good. I recommend reading Animal Ark series because they are really cool to read. I personally love reading about animals.

[Sammy]

I was completely obsessed with this series of books when I was a child and my aim was to read every single book. They are a really good children's series.

[Taylor Troncin]

Loved this series when I was younger. Still a huge animal lover and would like to read the rest of this series!