BOOK EXCERPT
MARGUERITE, MISTY & ME
A Horse Lover’s Hunt for the Hidden History of Marguerite Henry and Her Chincoteague Pony BY SUSAN FRIEDLAND Reprinted with permission from the author
MARGUERITE HENRY was in a movie? How did I miss this when I was a kid devouring her famous horse books? There she was on my laptop screen, a slim senior with a tousled pixie hairdo retrieving a stack of fan letters from her mailbox. Marguerite narrated, “When I was a little girl, I wanted more than anything to have a horse of my very own. As I grew older, grownups said I’d get over my longing for a horse, but I never did.” I get you, Marguerite. I never grew out of that horse phase either. It was 2021 when I viewed the surprisingly action-packed 1980 educational film about her writing process, Story of a Book. Marguerite researched in a library, jotted down notes, plinked keys on her typewriter, drove a Volkswagen van, admired a pinto in a pasture, then spied on her husband Sidney as he read a first draft of her manuscript. If she noticed him looking confused or bored, she knew she had more work to do. In the film, Marguerite had pep in her step, great posture and wore neck scarves in every scene. I learned Marguerite worked through at least five different drafts and enjoyed, “revising and polishing a story. It’s like grooming a horse to make it shine.” After her manuscript had enough “grooming,” she would send it off to her publisher. A Google search revealed there was no shortage of sources to learn about the award-winning author Marguerite Henry, but I began wondering what her childhood was like. Could I find places and sources to help me create a sketch of a young Marguerite? What was she like as a little girl and teenager? What was her life like
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THE PLAID HORSE
December 2023/January 2024
