A Pony Named Patches (Charming Ponies Series) [Paperback]

In Patches (also published as A Pony Named Patches), Matt's life has taken some major bumps lately - his dad died recently, and his mother is taking him to spend the summer with his Aunt Marleen and Uncle Bob in Chincoteague while she heads back to Baltimore to put things in order. He's haunted by the memories of his last visit there with both his parents. On his first day, two important things happen. First, Matt makes a visit to Assateague Island and watches a mare give birth to a colt, with Matt capturing several pictures on his camera. And second, when he returns to his aunt and uncle's for dinner, they introduce him to another nine-year-old named Danny, and the two quickly hit it off.

Matt and Danny go into business together, collecting and selling worms to the bait shop, and Matt secretly continues visiting Assateague to photograph the colt and his mother, who seem to feel at ease around him, even letting Matt touch the colt. Matt quickly decides he needs to purchase the colt during the Pony Penning auctioning to let him return to Assateague and permanent freedom - this need is somehow triggered by the death of Matt's father. He only hopes he can make enough money in his business endeavors with Danny.

I came across great deals on several of Szymanski's horse books while shopping a while back at my favorite used bookstore, McKay's in Knoxville, a used book warehouse (also locations in Nashville and Chattanooga). I wasn't familiar with Szymanski, but at 50 cents and less per title, I thought they would fill a niche in my fourth grade classroom for easy chapter book horse stories.

I soon found out that most of the books had been published under one title, then later retitled and repackaged into the Charming Ponies series - they obviously wanted the word "Pony" in each title. It took a bit of online research, along with an e-mail to Lois Szymanski, to match up all the titles, but I think I've finally got it all figured out. The original titles (with original copyright date), followed by their Charming Pony series titles are:

1993 *Patches - A Pony Named Patches
1994 *New Kind of Magic - A Pony to Remember
1995 *Little Icicle - A Pony in Need
1996 *A Pony Promise (kept same title in reprint)
1996 A Perfect Pony (kept same title in reprint)
1997 *Silver Lining - A Pony to the Rescue
1997 Little Blue Eyes - A Pony Legend
1999 *Sea Feather (to be reprinted soon by another publisher)

I'm happy to report that the *six titles I've read* of these have been consistently good quality stories, about 70 pages each (though Patches is 91 pages), fairly large print with a few illustrations, about third to mid-fourth grade reading level, and many seem to be fact-based, some of them taking place at Chincoteague / Assateague, near where Szymanski lives in Maryland. And they are wholesome, teaching positive values. They really seemed to be in the vein of Marguerite Henry, tailored down to younger readers.

I've already placed an order with Amazon for the other two titles to complete my classroom collection of these books, which I'm guessing will get plenty of reading among my students. I do have to say that I like the original books better - the titles are less generic, and I find the Charming Ponies logo just gives connotations of "manufactured" stories, which these weren't. I also notice that the logo and / or the title on each of the Charming Ponies reprints is in some varying shade of pink or pinkish-purplish, meaning the boys will likely avoid them as being "girl books," which is too bad.

If you enjoy one of these books, you're likely to enjoy the others. I'm looking forward to receiving and reading the other two titles in the series.