Marguerite Henry Summer Reading Report #2 (books 8-16)

Earlier this summer I shared my Summer Reading Report #1, which included some favorite quotes from books 1-7 by Marguerite Henry. 

Today I've got the rest of the collection which includes a Newbery winner and two Newbery honors! I really enjoyed reading these books again. However, it wasn't all wonderful: one book I didn't enjoy all that much. And in another I found some inappropriate treatment of First Nations people. Read on!

GAUDENZIA, PRIDE OF THE PALIO

"June! The hallway into summer. The season for strong happenings, the season for living."

"Gaudenzia wanted to race every moving thing – a rabbit skirting the edge of the road, a hound streaking for a bird – the bird, too. Her friskiness, her eagerness to go filled him with a pride so strong he had to whistle to let the steam of his happiness escape."

JUSTIN MORGAN HAD A HORSE (Newbery Honor book)

"To please his other, Joel tried to eat, too. But even his favorite pumpkin pie was flannel in his mouth."

“'Yeah,' then saddler agreed, 'when it comes to running, a pulling horse is slow as a hog on ice with his tail froze in.'"

“'And I'll give you a green meadow with a creek snakin' through it. And I'll give you a fine stable with a thick bed of straw. And I'll give you sweet hay, and all the corn and oats you should eat. And I”ll give you a blanket in winter. And I'll rub you proper night and morning.'”

KING OF THE WIND - Newbery Medal winner

[pretty sure this book is why I fell in love with Arabian horses!]

"As Agba stood on watch, his mind was a mill wheel, turning, turning, turning. He trembled, remembering the time he and the mare had come upon a gazelle, and he had ridden the mare alongside the gazelle, and she had outrun the wild thing. Agba could still feel the wing singing in his ears."

“When Allah created the horse, he said to the wind, 'I will that a creature proceed from thee. Condense thyself.' And the wind condensed itself, and the result was the horse."

MISTY OF CHINCOTEAGUE (Newbery Honor)

“'Facts are fine, fer as they go,' he said, 'but they're like water bugs skittering at op the water. Legends, now they go deep down and bring up the heart of a story.'”

"The Phantom broke at the start, her cold weaving along behind her like the tail of a kite."

"Maureen watched the sun slide out from behind a low cloud and make diamonds of the raindrops on the grass. She turned her back on it. How could the sun shine when things went wrong?"

"The air went wild with greeting. Deep rumbling neighs. High joyous whickers. The stallion and the mare were brushing each other with their noses, talking together in soft little grunts and snorts as animals will."

MISTY'S TWILIGHT

"A freshly raked track at sunup is almost a holy place Hoofbeats playing soft music on wet tanbark. Barn smells- harvest hay and grains – mingling with drying compost, and over all , the pine-tree fragrance of Kritter Korner. In the ring only one splashily marked pinto pony holds center stage."

“'What,' the mother asks, 'is the breeding of this spunky little ballet dancer?'

Almost in concert Kathy and Sandy reply: 'She's a direct descendant of Misty of Chincoteague!'”

MUSTANG, WILD SPIRIT OF THE WEST *– about the fight to pass the Mustang Bill to protect wild mustangs from being overhunted (This is the one that I didn't enjoy all that much, because a lot of it was about the legal process... though of course I appreciate the work done to protect the wild mustangs!)

“'Remember, Pardner,' he said with gruff tenderness, 'don't fire your gun unless its loaded.'”

"Pa always said, 'Scatter enough seeds and some are bound to sprout.'”

"Grandma always said, 'Time's got a lot of elastic to it. The way you feel inside makes all the difference. It's like one of those fat rubber bands. If you're havin' fun it's got no give at all, goes fast and light. But if you're waitin' on somethin' or somebody, it stretches till doomsday.'”

*my least favorite so far.

SAN DOMINGO: THE MEDICINE HAT STALLION - depiction of First Nations people in this book is inappropriate

“'The past is a bucket of ashes. Let us improve upon the present. What be your needs now?'”

"He had been scrubbed so clean by his mother's washcloth of a tongue that his body markings were distinct and curiously beautiful. Pure white he was, with a cluster of red-brown splatters on his rump and along his belly. It was as though some Indian paintbrush had created a mystical design on his body."

"And so the invisible tie-rope between the tightened and strengthened."

SEA STAR

"Cautiously, as a child who has lighted a firecracker comes back to see if it will explode, so the foal came a step toward them. Then another rout of wild curiousness, and another. When Paul and Maureen still did not move, he grew bold, dancing closer and closer, asking questions with his pricked ears and repeating the with his small question-mark of a tail."

STORMY, MISTY'S FOAL

"Each birth was a different kind of miracle."

"A flush of light I the northeast brought him sharply awake. He peered through the siding and he saw Misty lying down, and he saw wee forehoofs breaking through the silken birth bag, the head resting upon them; then quickly came the slender boy with the hindlegs tucked under.

He froze in wonder at the tiny filly lying there, complete and whole in the straw. It gave one gulping gasp for air, and then its sides began rising and falling as regularly as the ticking of a clock."

WHITE STALLION OF LIPIZZA

“'I don't want this morning's experience to be so beautiful it will break your heart. It may be only once in a lifetime for you.'”

"He felt all at once on the brink of something deep and wonderful. He was here, actually here, about to see the mystery!"*

“'Our school is a small candle in a troubled world, If we can send out one beam of splendor, of glory of elegance, it is worth a man's lifetime,?'”

* I totally want to see the mystery! I am now on the look out for an opportunity to see the World Famous Lipizzaner Stallions... even if I have to go all the way to Vienna to do it. :)

... and that concludes my 2019 summer reading project. Yay!