Jill's Gymkhana (The Jill Books by Ruby Ferguson Book 1)

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These books are extremely well written, amusing and sometimes slightly tongue in cheek, especially when a terribly grown up 12 year old Jill refers to someone as "being in her 40's but not too old to enjoy herself"! F.H' and 'hard woman from hounds' which ordinary pedestrians like me wouldn't have the foggiest about. It uses the original text, which means I discovered a few new elements to the story that were cut from my version - that was a delight. There is so much of this book I remember which goes to show how much I loved it when I first read it.

Notably, in spite of their poverty and her insistence that Jill must pay for Black Boy's upkeep herself, she refuses to allow Jill to take money for walking some smaller children to school, and is all set to refuse a gift from Martin who is pretty strict himself because it's too generous. citation needed] In contrast, Ferguson's Jill is an active, independent and witty character who defies post-war expectations for English girls by scorning ladylike pursuits, treating boys her own age as equals, and working hard to achieve her goals. Second paragraph has been abridged omitting Jill ‘trying to look intelligent’ and being embarrassed about her mother telling Martin about her book, the hen house and the scullery floor. Jill Crewe has always wanted a pony and when she meets Farmer Clay, who just happens to have one for sale, she can't wait.Jill is finishing up a great day at Chatton Show, the equestrian event of the year in her part of the world.

You mean, if she had two eyes she'd be riding like a centaur,' said Martin, and we all laughed as we munched our sandwiches and put away a lot of ice cream.

I have to say I don't like the cover much, I would have preferred the original cover which would seem more in keeping with the period of the book. The book is actually quite clever about this when it comes to pony handling, as it follows all of Jill's 'and as of course you know' statements with very precise descriptions of how to brush or mount your pony, so that, well, of course the young know-it-all reading this book will know this information when it becomes vital to their future relationships with ponies. I was given the whole set of books by my mum when I was quite small, as I was pony mad, just like her at that age, and I loved them all. Nine lines of dialogue missing from conversation as Jill and her Mother thank Martin for coming to teach her.

Memmary as Ruby Ferguson, a romantic novel that became her greatest success, which was republished in 2004 by Persephone Books. Also I recommend always finding an unchanged version; yes there is some language that isn't acceptable in 2021, and the money is weird, but a) if you update the money it's still always locked in time to when that updated version was published; the 1990s sanitised versions that tried to change the money values are now wrong too, for example and b) reading racist language from the 40s didn't make me racist as a kid/teen in the 1990s because I wasn't dumb and knew it was from another time? Reference to the reckless melting of the whole week’s cheese ration has been changed to simply ‘Mummy melted down some cheese’. Knight used Bonar Dunlop’s illustrations for their versions, and cut the number from the original 27 that Caney provided to 13.Susan makes it very clear just how little she thinks of Jill, and Jill's chances in the local gymkhana.

He started out as a journalist, studying at the Edinburgh College of Commerce, and winning the Fraser Award aged just 21 for his writing. I still love it, and am happy to see something that made 8-year-old Yvonne forget her troubles and get lost in a book. Missing an eight-line paragraph where Jill reflects on her upcoming visit to Cecilia’s suggesting she will be ‘at her mercy’; how Aunt Primrose treats Jill like a child and how she doesn’t like her Uncle Henry (her mother’s brother) much. Well written, no frills and somehow believable, the tale of a young girl, with little money to spare who simply loves horses and works hard to keep a pony and learn to ride.In the first book in the series, Jill's Gymkhana, Jill's father has recently died, and she moves with her mother to a small Pool Cottage near the fictional village of Chatton.