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Book Club by Nancy Norton, Editor
A classic tale of love for a horse, and what it can push you to accomplish.
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Title: Misty of Chincoteague Author: Marguerite Henry Paperbook, 160 pages Reading Level: Third Grade – Seventh Grade
ecently I asked a young rider friend of mine for the titles of some of her favorite horse books, and Misty of Chincoteague was right at the top of her list. Misty is a story about a band of wild horses that live on an island and how a girl named Maureen and her brother Paul set about catch-
volves around Pony Penning Day, an actual annual event on the Island as early as the 1700s. “Penning” has been the traditional way livestock owners could claim the loose herds of ponies roaming the islands. Customs of penning evolved over the years, and by the 1920s, locals would round up
ponies. The kids love their grandfather, but they want a horse of their own, to keep and love. To make their dream come true, on the next Penning Day they plan to claim the Phantom, the most famous horse of them all. The day turns out to be full of surprises, and they find how many twists
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Four miles off the eastern shore of Virginia lies the tiny, wind-rippled isle of Chincoteague. It is only seven miles long and averages but twenty-one inches above the sea.
Assateague Island, however, is thirty-three miles long. Just as Paul Beebe says, Assateague is an outrider, protecting little Chincoteague from the rough seas of the Atlantic. The outer island is a wildlife refuge for wild geese and ducks, and the wild ponies.
ing the wildest one for their own. The story starts hundreds of years ago, on a Spanish galleon with a cargo of valuable Moor horses that will be traded to the Viceroy of Peru for gold. It is near the end of a difficult journey when a terrible storm wrecks the ship on the shoals off the coast of Virginia! The captain and all the crew drown, but the horses are able to swim to safety. Fast forward to Chincoteague Island in the 1940s. The book re-
— Excerpt of map from Misty of Chincoteague
the ponies on Assateague Island, swim them across the narrow channel to Chincoteague, then sell them to raise funds for the Volunteer Fire Company. Pony Penning Day is still held there every July. The book’s central characters are Maureen and Paul, who live with their grandparents. While it’s not clear, their parents might be missionaries in China. Grandpa has a ranch on the island of Chincoteague, where Maureen and Jim help him break and sell
and turns a dream can take before it comes true. Misty of Chincoteague received the Newbery Honor soon after it was published in 1947. It has never been out of print in all the years since, and has been published in several languages. It is beautifully illustrated, and led to several sequels as well as a movie. If you are looking for a well-told story about love for a horse, then you will enjoy the classic tale of Misty of Chincoteague. n
April 2012
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