A fine gallop through a field full of horses takes readers from the feisty orange pony of the first story, past an Indian mud pony, Bucephalus, Black Beauty, Misty’s forebears, a grey Welsh, a unicorn and a Medieval palfrey. It’s a Breyer collection come to storybook life, complete with lush N.C. Wyeth-like illustrations in both color and black-and-white and a beautiful layout that makes it a perfect gift for any horse-crazy child. Some of the 14 selections are obvious—that particular piece of Black Beauty must be the most anthologized horse story ever—but others, all well-chosen, come from contemporary novels such as The Snow Pony and I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade; a few are short stories original to this volume. The best, Lincoln Steffens’s “The Christmas Pony,” captures lasting heartbreak and perfect joy in a single page. A blue-ribbon winner. (Anthology. 8-14)
