A butcher's daughter in a small Sussex town ends her nightly prayers with "Oh, God, give me horses, give me horses! Let me be the best rider in England!" The answer to fourteen-year-old Velvet Brown's plea materializes in the form of an unwanted piebald, raffled off in a village lottery, who turns out to be adept at jumping fences--exactly the sort of horse that could win the world's most famous steeplechase, the Grand National.

I first read this book as a child and loved Velvet's story. I loved the fragments I could understand, anyway, because the story contains foods, events, and household items that were entirely foreign to a child in 1970's Texas. Even after all these years of enjoying British fiction, there's still a few things I'm puzzled about, because I really don't have any context for what would be considered normal vs eccentric in 1920's rural Sussex. And why the horror of wearing muslins to the gymkhana? What are muslins? I know it's a fabric, but the book treats it as a hated garment the girls are made to wear. Was it an especially ugly dress? Donald is obviously a precocious and mightily spoiled child, but is his spit bottle within the range of normal little boy things for that time? I don't know. I might never know. At least I now know what treacle is, and can google all the other terms. Thank god for google.

Listening to this on audio now as an adult, there's so much more to this story that I can appreciate. The prose is a treat, the family is enchanting, with such distinct and unique personalities, and I understand both Velvet and her mother much better.
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A butcher's daughter in a small Sussex town ends her nightly prayers with "Oh, God, give me horses, give me horses! Let me be the best rider in England!" The answer to fourteen-year-old Velvet Brown's plea materializes in the form of an unwanted piebald, raffled off in a village lottery, who turns out to be adept at jumping fences--exactly the sort of horse that could win the world's most famous steeplechase, the Grand National.

How did I get so far along life's path without having read this? I do not know. I have owned a copy of it for nearly ever. I do know I'm glad to have fallen in with Velvet and her remarkable family, including The Piebald and Mi(chael) Taylor, at long last. I didn't even know much of the story, other than it involved a girl and a horse and (I assumed) a race. So I find it actually involves a sickly, unattractive 14-year-old girl with an early version of braces (which she can remove when they get terribly uncomfortable); a recalcitrant, probably ill-bred horse; a once-famous mother who in her youth swam the English Channel against all odds; and that iconic steeplechase, the Grand National. If, like me, you had a picture of Velvet as the young and stunning Elizabeth Taylor astride a thoroughbred in your mind, you're forgiven for making that face you're making now. I've never seen the movie either (was Mickey Rooney her "trainer"?---that's quite wrong too) and I can't decide whether I want to. In any case, the story on the page is a dandy, there's next-to-no sentimentality to it, Velvet's mother is perfection, and her little brother is a hoot. I read one of Enid Bagnold's adult novels many years ago, and enjoyed it, although I found it just a bit overwrought in spots. Still, the characters in that one were very crisp around the edges, and the same is true here. No one blends into the background. The dialog is so realistic I had a little trouble with it at first (not being a denizen of rural England in the mid-1930's) but I soon caught on. Excellent illustrations in my book club edition from 1958. Highly recommended. ( )

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