ABSTRACT
The pony book continues in the long tradition of literature celebrating the love affair between humans and the horse, yet it has always been relegated firmly to the sidelines. Pony stories, like other types of formulaic fiction such as school stories, Westerns and romances, have certain narrative conventions. Pony stories owe a good deal to traditional fairy tales with their stories of the transformation of gauche girls and neglected ponies and the recurring pattern of motifs and conventional events. There was a growing interest in native breeds in Britain but, because these are ponies rather than horses, they are more closely linked with the young children who rode them. The flood of pony stories was temporarily stemmed by the Second World War. Anthropomorphic stories had lost their popularity in Britain but were kept alive by the Australian writer Elyne Mitchell, whose Silver Brumby books were read worldwide. Bonnie Bryant also produces a Pine Hollow series and the Pony Tales series.
