The Saddle Club (books)

The Saddle Club is a series of intermediate children's books published by Bantam Books between 1988 and 2001. The series was created by a publishing house using the contract writing services of self-professed equestrian novice Bonnie Bryant. Many titles were also written by ghostwriters. Spin-offs include four other book series: The Saddle Club Super Editions, The Saddle Club Inside Stories, Pony Tails, and Pine Hollow. The books were adapted into a TV show also called The Saddle Club. In the 1990s, there was also a fan club with a monthly newsletter and a line of model horses manufactured by Breyer.

The books follow the adventures of best friends Carole Hanson, Stevie Lake, and Lisa Atwood, who live in the fictional town of Willow Creek, Virginia, and ride at Pine Hollow Stables. In the first book of the series, Horse Crazy, Carole and Lisa help Stevie with her mathematics project, which launches the girls' friendship and the titular club.

At the beginning of the series, Carole and Stevie are twelve-year-old seventh-graders and Lisa is a thirteen-year-old eighth-grader. Although the characters live through several vacations and years of school, they do not age until the "Pine Hollow" series.

Structure of the Books

The Saddle Club is written in a third-person style. In early books, the narration was third-person limited and shifted from character to character, often offering more insight into the thoughts and feelings of the Saddle Club members and their friends; in later books, the narrative style became much more omniscient.

Titles

Main characters

Carole Hanson

Stephanie "Stevie" Lake

Elizabeth "Lisa" Atwood

Max Regnery III

Elizabeth "Mrs. Reg" Regnery

Veronica diAngelo

Recurring characters

Awards

In 2003 the series was awarded a BILBY Award.[1]

Spin-Offs

Books

Two additional types and two series of books were spun off following the popularity of The Saddle Club.

The Saddle Club Super Edition books also focus on Carole, Lisa, and Stevie, but are longer and occasionally written in a different style. For example, Super Edition #1, A Summer Without Horses, is broken into four sections, and the first three are about Lisa, Stevie, and Carole's personal experiences. Other Super Editions follow the same third-person narrative style of the regular series. For more information about the Super Editions, see the List of Saddle Club books.

The Inside Story books are written as diaries or journals. In each, the premise is that the title character - Stevie, Lisa, or Carole - is doing a project or writing a journal that requires her to explain her impressions of events in regular The Saddle Club books that involved all three girls. The Inside Story books are longer than the Super Editions. For more information about the Inside Story books, see the List of Saddle Club books.

The Pony Tails books are a spinoff series aimed at young readers ages 7–10. They focus on May Grover, Corey Takamura, and Jasmine James, who are also riders at Pine Hollow and form their own club called the Pony Tails.

The Pine Hollow books are a spinoff series aimed at teen and young adult readers. They focus on the same characters four years later, beginning during the summer before Lisa's senior year of high school and Carole and Stevie's junior year. Many characters from the Saddle Club books reappear in the Pine Hollow series, and two major new characters—Scott and Callie Forester—were introduced. The last Pine Hollow book, #17, Full Gallop, was written in 2001 and is chronologically the last book in the Saddle Club canon.

In 1990, a short story called Happy Horse Day! was published along with a short story in the Fabulous Five series by Betsy Haynes. The book was included in a Jean Nate gift set of bath products for girls.

TV series

In 2001, The Saddle Club was adapted into a TV series called The Saddle Club, which was filmed and set in Australia. There are notable differences between the characters and plotlines in the books and the TV series. The show ran for three seasons and has been broadcast on ABC and FOX8 in Australia, on Discovery Kids and public television in the United States, on YTV network in Canada, and on PopGirl in the UK. Episodes are available on DVD.

References

  1. "Previous Winners of the BILBY Awards: 2001 to date" (PDF). www.cbcaqld.org. The Children's Book Council of Australia Queensland Branch. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
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