Pony Thieves by Julia Cotter

You will never have heard of this title, nor its author, but Julia Cotter was my mother. The book was written in its first draft after the War and then again when I was a small child in the late 1950s (one of the heroines is named after me), but it is set in the 1930s, in those halycon days of ponies, ponies, ponies before the War. When she died in 2008, I found a note in her desk saying how much she wanted to have Pony Thieves published, clearly written before GGBP had done so. After publication, she was an amazing author, and everyone she met was told about the book, and given an order form, and then she checked to make sure they had bought a copy. Even in the last few months of her life, she sold copies to her chiropodist and one of her nurses. Clarissa

As Caroline and Clarissa return from school for the summer holidays the weeks seem to stretch before them. But almost as soon as their father met them on the station, they learnt that ponies in the area were being stolen. The tracking down of the thieves overshadows their summer, but is my no means all they do, as they participate in competing at local gymkhanas, and spend time with equally pony-mad friends. And then the fast moving story moves from Cumberland to France and involves not only gypsies but also a dramatic rescue. GGBP published Pony Thieves in August 2003. Pony Thieves went our of print in June 2011.