Show Horse

Saddle Club #25

by Bonnie Bryant

With the date for the horse show drawing near, Stevie plans to win as many categories as possible, Carole vows to beat Cam Nelson, and Lisa is determined to ride Prancer.

Genres: Horses, Animals, Childrens, Middle Grade, Young Adult

139 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

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

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prancer: Prancer no
Lisa: PRANCER YES

I maintain my statement that Lisa needs to go home, punch her mom and seek out some therapy.

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is more of a 2.25 star book than a two, so I rounded down. In comparison to some of the worst books in the series that I've read so far, especially the last book Ghost Rider, this was an improvement.

But not enough of an improvement.

Prancer, a newly retired racehorse and recovered from a broken pedal bone, is made to go to horse show with Lisa? Are you kidding me?

Apparently not. Riding instructor Max allowed this fiasco to happen in order to teach Lisa a lesson. However, that "lesson" was super dangerous -- and someone did get injured, albeit mildly. The point is, this scenario WOULD NEVER HAPPEN in real life, unless the riding instructor was incredibly brain dead. As we saw in Horse Trouble, Max is not exactly best friends with common sense.

But he could've destroyed his reputation with letting Lisa show Prancer.

This was the first book in the series where a new-fangled thing called the Internet is used. Carole is a member of a BBS. Jeezus, remember them? How quaint. Apparently, Carole is not allowed to have an email address, because she just communicates via the bulletin boards. This book was first published in 1992, when only the rich could afford not only PCs, but dial-up. It would take a few more years until the Internet got more affordable for the hoi poloi. For example, I was dirt poor with only a full time Kmart graveyard shift job, but did get online in 1996.

Continuity errors continue to be a problem. Stevie is worried about wanting to beat her friends at the show -- um, since when? This was never a problem for Stevie before. Barq is described as a bay, when I believe he was a chestnut in his first introduction to the series. Lisa's mother is suddenly afraid Lisa is going to get hurt while riding, which is treated like this has been an ongoing problem. It hasn't. This is a brand new neurotic tick of Lisa's obviously mentally ill mother.

This book was a little longer than most of the previous books, which gave Bryant (or whoever wrote this book) more time to add puzzling details. Lisa acts as if she's never shown before -- yet she has. Carole has never heard of a reserve champion before -- oh, come on. She'd have known all about it, since she's not only a veteran of shows, but a veteran horse show spectator.

Somebody make this make sense.

The only other noteworthy point of this book is that Carole's boyfriend is introduced.

[Sam Wescott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy these kind of classic Saddle Club books where the girls ride horses and have small social tiffs between them. I feel like a book where the main conflict is a slight attitude problem is really refreshing after the ones where the survive avalanches, foil horse thieves, or do Yet More Traveling. In this one, Lisa gets really wrapped up in riding Prancer and takes her to a show before she's ready. She doesn't do well and pouts about it until her friends bring her around. It's a solid, middle-schooler story and I enjoy watching the girls learning how to support each other.

Also, we get to meet Cam, which is lovely if you remember his cameos in other Saddle Club books and ABSOLUTELY HORRIFYING if you read the Pine Hollow books about when the girls are older and how how he's going to treat Carole. >.<

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmm, not my favorite installment in the series. This one saw Lisa go gaga over Prancer, a horse who isn't ready to show, as the girls prepare for Briarwood, a local horse show and competition. There were absolutely no hijinks in this one and zero humor, which is a shame since Veronica was the 4th Pine Hollow rider entered into the competition and there was plenty of opportunity for some kind of horse trouble and/or pranks. This was just very straightforward and all about the preparations the girls undertake and then their performances and ribbons won in the horse show itself. We do get to meet Carole's paramour Cam Nelson in this one, but otherwise it isn't particularly noteworthy or memorable.

[Laynie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book along with all the other ones in the series. It is all about horses and it gives off a tiny lesson in a subtle way. These books make you feel emotions. You feel the characters emotions too. It talked about how you might have expectations for one thing but it doesn't come out as planned.

[AS · Rating 1 out of 5]

Completely inaccurate!!!
Halter classes are breed specific

Trail classes are western only

Pleasure riding classes tends to be a saddleseat type course or one that would be a bit more breed specific like Saddlebreds.

The others would be proper classes at an english riding show

the shadow writer for this one did terrible research and it shows.

[Stefanie Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The trip is getting ready for competition in this book. Lisa, who I find to be almost insufferable most of the time, is obsessed with a horse who is not ready to show. Carole is determined to beat a rival at the show, so she gets obsessed about that. This was not one of my favorite books in the series. Lisa and her mother need to skeedaddle.

[Jemma:) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book it was really exciting ❤️

[Sue Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty good
love the stories
love the horses
Pretty good inspirational stories
highly recommended these books

[Endless Possibilities · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bonnie Brytová a její Dívky v sedlech. Série knih plných dobrodružství, poučení, kamarádství a hlavně lásce ke koním. Velký závod je moc hezky a poutavě napsaný příběh určený především mladším čtenářů, ale hlavně milovníkům koní. Já i přes to, že už nepatřím do věkové kategorie, pro kterou je kniha určena, jsem si příběh moc užila a dokážu si živě představit, že ještě párkrát po ní šáhnu.

[Hazel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good series for horse crazy young teens. I loved it when I was younger.

[Sammy]

Perfect read for pony-crazy teenagers.

[Kit731 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lisa mi v tomto díle přišla skoro jako Veronica...