Horse Books

Phantom Stallion

Kristian Beverly8 Comments

When thinking about a color for my new resin, I tried to think of a real life counterpart to have immortalized. I thought about the various non-famous horses I’ve met and ridden, but while they were nice to meet, they didn’t really leave a big enough mark for me to want a miniature version.
My favorite horses when I was smaller were the ones that lived between book covers. 🙂

The Phantom Stallion was a horse series written by Terri Farley. The 24 book series was first published in 2002 and the last book came out in 2006. The books revolved around 13-14 year old Sam Foster, her family and friends, and her fight for the mustangs she loved. Here’s a synopsis from Amazon.


“When 13-year-old Samantha returns home to her family′s cattle ranch in Nevada, she′s worried. She moved away two years ago to recover from a bad fall off her beloved mustang, Blackie, and she′s still not sure she can get back in the saddle. Her new colt doesn′t seem to like her, and the other ranchers treat her like the boss′s spoiled daughter, and Blackie has been missing since that fateful day.
But that′s just the beginning. When Sam suddenly finds the fate of a mysterious mustang who may or may not be the missing Blackie – resting in her hands, she has to learn to be a real cowgirl, ready or not. The classic theme of a girl and her horse is set against a backdrop of mustangs, tumbleweeds, and a West that′s still Wild.”

Living on a ranch in Nevada with a wild horse that only you can control? Yep. I devoured these books.  I read twenty-two of the twenty-four books. For some reason not finishing horse series was something I did when I was in middle school.
Anyways, I thought Dos Brio would be a great version of The Phantom in miniature. From the books, The Phantom was described to have Arab influence and be grey. Dos Brio has a beautiful face and could pass as a once-tamed-horse-gone-wild horse. Plus, the great thing about books is that characters can be interpreted in numerous ways.
Terri Farley found the real life version of the fictional horse. The story behind him is on her website.
I made a halter to go with my resin and name plate. I changed the way I did the name plate and instead of getting a semi-good result once out of four times, I got solid and clear results the first time around! So yay.

The Phantom went by numerous names in the book, so I made 2 halter nameplates. One says Phantom and the other Zanzibar.
Not sure about which halter nameplate I like better. Thoughts?

The Missing Link

Kristian Beverly8 Comments

It’s funny how time moves and how sometimes something that felt like it happened yesterday actually happened many years ago.
Some  summers ago, my mom and I went to a yard sale.
It was the best yard sale ever. A) There were Breyers B) There was a huge case of horse books.
I bought the case of books and most of the Breyers. There was a range of horse books, but one series caught my eye. The Thoroughbred series.
The Thoroughbred series was created by Joanna Campbell in 1991 and lasted 15 years. It ended with 72 books, other authors, and spin off editions .
So I bought them home. Read them. Got to number thirteen. Finished it. Went to start number fourteen….and…there was none. By this point I had been reading two or three of them a day. So not having fourteen put a major damper into the reading binge I was doing. I put the series aside and started on another book and Thoroughbred was pushed to the back of mind. For years.
Of course the logical thing would have been to go and buy number fourteen. Sadly Borders didn’t have any and online shopping never crossed my mind.
But I don’t do easy. I do difficult.
Difficult meant years later I finally bought the book. I was working in the book store today and decided to check and see if number fourteen was there. And it was. I was told that it had been put away the day before. I’m not 100% sure what made me see if it was there but it must have been meant to be. So here’s number fourteen. While I feel like I am passed the intended age group…but better late than never….right? (At this point that’s what I’m telling myself!)

Now to finish that chapter of Watchman for graphic novel  class…..

Misty The Wonder Pony

Kristian Beverly2 Comments

During the Ebay semi-binge shopping spree of 2014, I bought this.

It was published in 1956, which was 9 years after the publication of Misty of Chincoteague. It was ‘written’ by Misty herself. It is a part of the Tip Top Elf books that include Mother Goose, The Ten Commandments, and many more stories. It’s told from the point of view of Misty and goes from her foal days up to her leaving Marguerite Henry to go back to Chincoteague.

 Marguerite Henry isn’t named in the story, but from the illustrations and story you can put two and two together of who this ‘lady’ is.

The story includes Misty’s birthday parties and her being the only four-legged member of the American Library Association. It ended with Misty telling the reader that it’s time to go back to Chincoteague.

“But now I’ve a yearning to go back to my wild island home. I want a little pony tagging at my heels. I want to raise up colts of my own. And so I’m off to Chincoteague. I want to be a Mother.”

This is an adorable book. Can’t wait to add yet another Misty thing to my Misty collector class stuff. 🙂

Misty Makes A Movie

Kristian Beverly6 Comments

In the past month, I have semi-rejoined eBay.

The thing I like about Ebay is being able to find vintage things.
I bought Misty Makes A Movie. 
Adding items to my stock of ‘Misty things’ for the collector class is always a good thing.
As you know, I love Chincoteague, Misty and Marguerite Henry related things.  The book was based off of Marguerite Henry’s Misty of Chincoteague and the movie Misty. It was published in 1961. 
It’s fifty-three years old, so I think the book is in pretty good condition, especially for it to be a children’s book.
It is a thin book.  Yet, it is filled with photos
The Pied Piper in the movie
and drawings
along with being able to summarize the story of Misty in a low number of pages.
I can’t wait to incorporate it into my next collector’s class!