Book: about horses or a horse on the cover.  Books with roses on the cover or about gardening; anything set in Australia.

I mean, was there any other choice for my Man from Snowy River loving heart???

I'm going to read the first four :)

This book continues on from where Silver Brumbies of the South ended, with Baringa growing up and Dawn with foal. Baringa has to battle all of the elements, it seems, so he’s faced moving to a new kingdom, fire and snow and storm. The only thing left to conquer is flood, and unfortunately the flood steals his precious Dawn and Baringa has to spend most of the novel searching for her while Lightning creeps about being a creeper and generally getting into trouble.

I kind of feel sorry for Lightning, I mean it’s not really his fault that he’s not as awesome as Baringa. No one would ever mistake Lightning for Thowra, but he inherited his sire’s beauty and strength if not his wisdom. It’s kind of obvious Baringa is the favourite because he gets the most beautiful mares and he beats all the villains and everyone’s pretty much in awe of him. Imagine being Lightning, being this super-rare, super-beautiful silver brumby and playing second fiddle to your own nephew who’s younger and not as awesome.

Sometimes I wonder if they were trying to turn Lightning into a pseudo-Arrow because as much as Arrow bullied and harassed Thowra and Storm as colts, Lightning seems to have inherited that same sneaky, kind of jealousy toward Baringa that Arrow had and Storm never did. Lightning desperately wants beautiful Dawn for his own herd, but then he remembers he already has Goonda, and when she is almost stolen he realises he’d rather have Goonda than Dawn, which is kind of sweet.

Anyway despite there being loads of action and stolen mares and mares who leave their stallions willingly and mares who want to go with Thowra and end up with Baringa and mares who go with Lightning and end up with Baringa and stallions who come looking for their lost mares, the main story revolves around Baringa’s search and rescue of his beloved Dawn. Then, once he’s reclaimed her, he has to do like Thowra did when he became king of the Cascades and beat the resident nasty that Yarraman/Lightning couldn’t beat, the nameless black stallion, to claim his rightful title of Silver Stallion of Quambat Flat.

Even though, you know, Cloud kind of owns Quambat and I’m pretty sure even Thowra respects that.

Whatever. Baringa is the new Thowra. Deal with it.

To some, it might be disappointing that Thowra’s own son by Golden, Lightning, lacks the bush wisdom inherited by Bel Bel, Thowra’s mother, and passed on down to Kunama, his creamy daughter by Golden, by virtue of Boon Boon, Thowra’s second favourite and wisest mare.

But in reality it shows that Lightning was not going to be favourited by his own father, and when he is two years old and Baringa, Kunama’s son by Tambo, is a yearling, Thowra decides to kick them out of the Cascades and lead them south to Quambat Flat territory, further south than the Brolga lived. I thought Baringa much too young to lead on a far trek south and basically abandon into the care of an unknown yet benevolent new ally called Cloud. Cloud is light grey, so of course he can be trusted. Less trustworthy are the typical chestnut and iron grey villains that plague the Silver Herd, attempting to capture the females and kill the males.

To my surprise, Thowra simply abandons his son and grandson and expects them to be OK, so this book is mostly about Baringa and how he’s a year younger than Lightning but so much more like Thowra than his uncle will ever be. Lightning gains his first mare before Baringa, but he is jealous of the beautiful filly who Baringa befriends, called Dawn, and sneakily tries to make her part of his herd. He thinks because he is older and bigger and stronger than Baringa that he must be more handsome, but Baringa is faster- maybe even faster than Thowra himself – and from the age of two Baringa learns how to fight to keep himself and his tiny little herd safe. Then he goes searching for a mysterious filly who might or might not exist.

Lightning’s not exactly the villain in this, that’s reserved for basically every other stallion who’s not related to Storm or the new ally Cloud, but he does give Baringa some grief and then pretend like he never intended to steal Dawn. Baringa is smarter and more bush wise than his uncle, but then again, so far south from the men and their machines building roads into the Cascades, they’ve never faced man, nor harsh winters, nor bushfire, the latter two of which they have to overcome without Thowra’s guidance. Thowra comes and goes as he pleases, concerned with the welfare of his male offspring but probably more concerned with the mares he left in his secret valley.

This was a remarkably different book to The Silver Brumby’s Daughter. I think Mitchell went back to stallion protagonists because essentially their stories are more exciting than mares: finding their place in the world, fighting for a herd and for their own lives at every turn, falling in love with multiple beautiful fillies to fill their harem herd.  Kunama learned her lesson, chose her stallion early, and had a turn running from bushmen, but the lives of the stallions are far more in constant danger than hers. Also, she was allowed to stay in the Hidden Flat with Tambo and her chestnut foal, whereas Lightning and Baringa had to leave to find their own kingdoms because Thowra wouldn’t share, even though he kind of shares herd leader duties with Storm, even though Storm never beat The Brolga to become King of the Cascades… anyway good for Storm, he’s probably my favourite.

A silver brumby is special, but he will be hunted by man and horse alike, and must be stronger than both...

Thowra's speed and courage have always saved him from the men who want to capture him - until now, when the men come on skis quickly and silently over the mountains. This time Thowra must protect his daughter from the hunters who prize the silver brumbies above any other horse.

This book is set nearly a year after the end of The Silver Brumby, when Throwa took a wild leap for freedom out of the big brumby drive that led many a man to think he was now dead, a Ghost Horse. He’s been hiding in his beautiful Secret Valley with Golden, Kunama, Boon Boon, and Boon Boon’s grey sisters. But Kunama has her father’s wandering spirit, and she longs to run with the handsome black young stallion Tambo, whom Storm took under his wing when his mother, the black racehorse from the south, was recaptured in the big brumby drive.

Storm and Thowra are co-kings of the Cascade herd, of a sorts, with Thowra the undisputed leader but often in hiding, and Storm leading them otherwise. They are somewhat lenient towards Tambo, whom Storm trained in the art of the bush. I’m not sure why – maybe they can both tell he would be a good mate for Kunama? Thowra gives a thrashing to the mean-spirited nephew of Arrow, called Spear, who chases Kunama from one end of the Cascades to the other, desperate to add her to his herd, but when Tambo is caught frolicking with Kunama all he gets is a shaking and a stern lecture from Storm.

It was interesting seeing life from the point of view of a silver filly. Like Thowra, Kunama has to be beware of men, but she’s also the jewel of any stallion’s herd, and unlike Thowra, she’s not big and strong enough to fight amorous stallions off, so Tambo fights for her – again and again – and he’s only three years old, but far more fierce than Thowra ever was at that age. Remember, Bel Bel told Thowra not to fight The Brolga until he was at full strength, when he was about four or five years old. Whereas Thowra only really had two horse enemies – Arrow and The Brolga – Kunama has to hide herself practically all the time lest a stallion see her and want her for himself.

And all she wants is to run with Tambo– but he’s not part of the Silver Herd, and he’s not allowed to know about the Secret Valley, so Kunama has to split her time between her family including new baby brother Lightning, and Thowra in the Valley, and with Tambo and Tambo’s two other ‘creamy’ fillies (with dark points, so not silver like Kunama).

And above all, Kunama is hunted by men because she’s an easier mark than Thowra, being so young and female, and the stifling presence of the men combined with the suffocating walls of the Secret Valley and her longing to run with Tambo lead Kunama to wish for only one thing: freedom. The kind of freedom that Thowra still has – as a strong, fast stallion, king of the Cascades, he can go anywhere he wants. Kunama hates being so limited, and I can identify with her because those limits are placed on her because of her sex. Poor precious beauty, can’t run free with her boyfriend for fear of capture by man or other stallions…

I wonder if I can make a new post for each book in this omnibus and still have them count as separate reviews? We'll see.

SUMMARY

Follows the early life and first few years of adulthood of the magnificent ‘silver’ brumby Thowra as he fights for a herd against a mighty rival The Brolga and for his freedom from the men who hunt the wild brumbies of the Snowy Mountains.

PLOT

I think this kind of book is called a bildungsroman – a coming of age story, except it’s about a horse. It doesn’t tell of Thowra’s entire life, like Black Beauty, but of his rise to maturity and becoming King of the Cascade brumbies. It details how he outwits several rivals and steals a beautiful palomino mare from the stockmen who come to the mountains to hunt brumbies.

CHARACTERS

Well, there’s Thowra, who is the most incredible horse ever to roam the earth. He’s at once cunning, intelligent, speedy, strong, and somewhat arrogant of his own beauty. His mother Bel Bel, who was creamy herself and taught him all of her bushcraft and independence is a wise mentor and basically a giant sweetheart. There’s Storm, the ordinary-coloured bay half-brother that I have an incredibly soft spot for, and I know he adores Thowra and vice versa despite him never having to face the same ordeals Thowra has to because of his colour. I love how they stay friends and never rivals their whole lives. The Brolga is a silent villain, one who knows Thowra is his greatest threat, while his daughter Boon Boon becomes one of Thowra’s favourite mares. It’s a really great mix of horses of different personalities and there’s one there for everyone to love, even formerly tame Golden who becomes Thowra’s greatest prize.

WRITING

This is a classic novel, written back in the 1950s when there were certain gender roles fulfilled by men and women and that seem to leech into this novel as well. With this anthropomorphism, of course a stallion is the leader of his herd, and even though Bel Bel knows more about the bush and is infinitely wiser than her stallion, Yarraman, she’s still second fiddle when it comes to leading a herd. Bel Bel is prized above all other mares because of her colour, just like Golden is later on. Thowra’s basically in a polygamous relationship with his mares, and they’re all OK with it, because that’s how things work. These kind of human relationships are superimposed on the horses and of course it’s not how horses really behave, but it’s easy to fall into the romance of it. The writing itself can seem a bit old-fashioned but it just adds to the beauty and poetry of the descriptions of the Australian bush and the way the wild horses live in it. Even though I’ve never been to the Snowy Mountains I really have no problem imagining what it looks like.

PACING

The pacing is spot on in this novel – when nothing interesting happens, time skips forward. I remember when I was a child re-reading this novel for the billionth time that the fights between the stallions seemed to go on for a long time, but in reality they’re just about a page long. Nothing is wasted, nothing is expanded if it doesn’t need to be. It’s not sparse, but for example skipping over Thowra’s second winter does absolutely nothing to hinder the plot and just keeps the pace going to the more interesting parts.

OVERALL

This is one of my childhood favourites and I was excited to read it again as an adult. It’s perfect for horse lovers or younger readers but I’m certain adults will find something charming in here as well. I can’t imagine anyone not liking this book.