Book Review: Best Friends in Summer
Jan. 28th, 2022 07:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerAges ago (okay, a month ago) I read Mary Bard’s Best Friends, and instantly put an interlibrary loan of the first of its two sequels… which as far as I can tell languished throughout the holidays, but at last! At long last Mary Bard’s Best Friends in Summer has arrived!
In the last book, Suzie and Co Co became best friends when Co Co’s single father moved in next door to Suzie’s single mother. Now, inevitably, the parents have gotten married, and as they head off on their honeymoon, Suzie and Co Co are off to spend the summer on a cattle ranch!
There is much horseback riding! Co Co has never ridden before and is afraid of the horses; however, soon she befriends a donkey named Stubborn, who like Co Co turns out to be French (the ranch bought Stubborn from a French-Canadian trader). Even as she grows better at riding, she rides Stubborn in preference to the horses.
Suzie and Co Co also spend a lot of time hanging out with Judy and Debby, another best friend pair around their age. (Both girls love to ride, but Judy is a daredevil while Debby has a more studious side .) Judy and Debby take Co Co and Suzie out to the rock slide, which is a waterfall that the girls slide down into a pool, where they run into Judy and Debby’s friends Walter and Jimmy, two local Indian teenage boys. Co Co is thrilled to meet real live Indians; Walter, meanwhile, is thrilled to meet a real live French girl!
(This is the 1960 version of anti-racism, and this book is genuinely doing better than a lot of books from that time period, which I realize says a lot about the time period.)
Later on, when Judy and Co Co are out riding, Judy gets her foot stuck under a rock. Co Co must ride back to the ranch on Judy’s spirited pony! “Don’t kick him or he’ll go fast,” Judy cautions her. Co Co, the bravest of little toasters, rides Judy’s horse carefully down to the flats… then kicks his sides, and they race back to the ranch for help!
But as Co Co and the cowboys rush to Judy’s aid, it turns out that Walter and Jimmy already found Judy (they happened to be out searching for a lost mare), freed her foot, and are already bringing her home. HAPPY END.
And then Co Co gets to go back to riding Stubborn. I kind of love that Co Co, as stubborn as Stubborn himself, sticks to her donkey even after she’s learned how to ride a horse. A girl who knows what she likes!
The third book in the trilogy, Best Friends at School, is a boarding school story (!!!!!), and Debby from the ranch will also be attending that same boarding school. Naturally I am raring to get my paws on it, but unfortunately the Inter Library Loan office is NOT raring to bring it to me. When I put in my request, they put a hold on Mary Bard’s Best Friends, which the library owns… but which is NOT, you will observe, the same book as Best Friends at School.
There have been a couple times in the past when, due either to an error in the catalog or a lack of due diligence on my part, I have requested through ILL books that the library owns. I suspect that they thought I had messed up again and didn’t do their due diligence on discovering that Best Friends at School is a different book than Best Friends, and have been cagy about admitting that they messed up because they’re embarrassed. (I mean, I was certainly embarrassed when I requested Sawdust in His Shoes through ILL, without checking the catalog because I was mystifyingly certain that the library didn’t have it… and it turned out the library has it.)
However, in the end they promised to keep looking, so perhaps it will show up? It’s about Suzie and Co Co in boarding school (!!) where they befriend a Hawaiian classmate (!!!!) and you just know I need it in my life.
In the last book, Suzie and Co Co became best friends when Co Co’s single father moved in next door to Suzie’s single mother. Now, inevitably, the parents have gotten married, and as they head off on their honeymoon, Suzie and Co Co are off to spend the summer on a cattle ranch!
There is much horseback riding! Co Co has never ridden before and is afraid of the horses; however, soon she befriends a donkey named Stubborn, who like Co Co turns out to be French (the ranch bought Stubborn from a French-Canadian trader). Even as she grows better at riding, she rides Stubborn in preference to the horses.
Suzie and Co Co also spend a lot of time hanging out with Judy and Debby, another best friend pair around their age. (Both girls love to ride, but Judy is a daredevil while Debby has a more studious side .) Judy and Debby take Co Co and Suzie out to the rock slide, which is a waterfall that the girls slide down into a pool, where they run into Judy and Debby’s friends Walter and Jimmy, two local Indian teenage boys. Co Co is thrilled to meet real live Indians; Walter, meanwhile, is thrilled to meet a real live French girl!
(This is the 1960 version of anti-racism, and this book is genuinely doing better than a lot of books from that time period, which I realize says a lot about the time period.)
Later on, when Judy and Co Co are out riding, Judy gets her foot stuck under a rock. Co Co must ride back to the ranch on Judy’s spirited pony! “Don’t kick him or he’ll go fast,” Judy cautions her. Co Co, the bravest of little toasters, rides Judy’s horse carefully down to the flats… then kicks his sides, and they race back to the ranch for help!
But as Co Co and the cowboys rush to Judy’s aid, it turns out that Walter and Jimmy already found Judy (they happened to be out searching for a lost mare), freed her foot, and are already bringing her home. HAPPY END.
And then Co Co gets to go back to riding Stubborn. I kind of love that Co Co, as stubborn as Stubborn himself, sticks to her donkey even after she’s learned how to ride a horse. A girl who knows what she likes!
The third book in the trilogy, Best Friends at School, is a boarding school story (!!!!!), and Debby from the ranch will also be attending that same boarding school. Naturally I am raring to get my paws on it, but unfortunately the Inter Library Loan office is NOT raring to bring it to me. When I put in my request, they put a hold on Mary Bard’s Best Friends, which the library owns… but which is NOT, you will observe, the same book as Best Friends at School.
There have been a couple times in the past when, due either to an error in the catalog or a lack of due diligence on my part, I have requested through ILL books that the library owns. I suspect that they thought I had messed up again and didn’t do their due diligence on discovering that Best Friends at School is a different book than Best Friends, and have been cagy about admitting that they messed up because they’re embarrassed. (I mean, I was certainly embarrassed when I requested Sawdust in His Shoes through ILL, without checking the catalog because I was mystifyingly certain that the library didn’t have it… and it turned out the library has it.)
However, in the end they promised to keep looking, so perhaps it will show up? It’s about Suzie and Co Co in boarding school (!!) where they befriend a Hawaiian classmate (!!!!) and you just know I need it in my life.
