This 10th anniversary edition of the very first in the Pony-Mad Princess series is full of authentic pony facts and sparkly princessy detail and is sure to set the mind of any pony mad or aspiring pony mad child alight from around 6+.
A note from the author...I love writing the Pony-Mad Princess books. I can let my imagination fly and combine my passion for ponies with my delight in making people laugh. There's definitely a little bit of me in Ellie, but my life was never that exciting or that much fun.
There are more books in the Pony Mad Princess series...
Princess Ellie is pony-mad! She'd much rather be riding or helping out at the royal stables than having boring waving lessons. But someone is spying on her...and when Sundance, one of her beloved ponies, goes missing, Ellie is sure that the mysterious girl in the woods is to blame. Can she solve the mystery and rescue Sundance before it's too late?
Diana Kimpton has written more than forty books for children, including her Pony-Mad Princess series, other novels, picture books and non-fiction. She has always loved horses and finds that writing about them gives her the perfect excuse to spend time at the stables when she should be working. Diana says " I've always made up stories. When I was a child, I did it in my head using characters from my favourite TV programmes or the horses I dreamed of owning. But I never saw writing as a possible career, especially as I didn't like English at secondary school. Perhaps I was already too much a writer at heart to enjoy dissecting other people's books. So I left school and became a maths teacher which I didn't like. Then I left teaching and became a mother which I loved. Finally, in the time left over from parenting, I became a writer which is such fun that I don't ever want to stop."
Here's Diana talking about her writing...
A Q&A with Diana about her new novel, There Must Be Horses
What led you to write There Must Be Horses? I wanted to write a longer book for readers who had grown out of my Pony-Mad Princess books. But I was keen not to write a story about winning red rosettes, so I started investigating horse whispering and horse behaviour. While I was doing that I became fascinated with the similarity in the way both horses and humans lose trust in people if they have bad experiences and that became the trigger for the plot.
Did you do much research for the book? Masses. I even bought a horse of my own to try out all the methods I had read about. That was my excuse anyway. I'd always wanted a pony, and Kubus is far more than just a research project - he's a friend. He's also triggered an idea for another book that's just starting to brew in my head.
How long did it take you to write the book? Ages - I've never spent so long on any book. I wrote the first chapter five years ago, just to see if Sasha worked as a character. Then I stopped writing while I worked on the Amy Wild - Animal Talker books, but I kept on with the research and let the story grow on my head. Once I settled down to work on the book again, I spent about a year finalising the plot and actually writing it down.
