This event will be followed by the Teddy Bear Picnic, or Pony Pals #38: Ponies on Parade

After this, only one more Pony Pal to go!!! Aaaagh!!
I like how it took Jeanne Betancourt 38 books to improve her writing. This book isn't spectacular and shouldn't win any awards, but it's probably one of the best Pony Pals books. Except for the fact that Acorn looks like a Wookiee on the cover.



Plot: The Pony Pals are SUPER excited for the Fall Festival, where there will be fun games, fatty foods, and crisp autumn leaves to enjoy!!!
This year, the town is doing something special; they're picking 10 people to each paint a lifesize statue of a pony.
Okay, what is this town's obsession with ponies?
Anna really wants to enter, but she doesn't have any ideas...and her homework is keeping her busy.
The Pony Pals help her brainstorm and finish her essay.
Anna paints her lifesize pony statue to look just like Acorn, and writes a bunch of Shetland facts on the sides.
But Tommy Rand, after having several angry altercations with the Pony Pals, decides to get revenge and paints graffiti all over Anna's pony!!!
Plus, he tries to pin it on Mike by writing "ML was here".
Nice try, Tommy.
Anna manages to fix the pony, and Mike apologize's for his boyfriend's behavior. Tommy, however, isn't the least bit sorry.
The Pony Pals decide to teach him a lesson. The pony statues are to be auctioned off at the Fall Festival, so the Pony Pals convince Mrs. Rand (Tommy's mother) that Tommy misses Acorn and he needs the statue to remind him of his old pony.
So Mrs. Rand buys the statue at the auction!!!!
Then she gets up on stage and tells everyone how much her son loves ponies!!!
Try the best Pony Pals ending ever!!!

More notes:
Anyone can write a research paper in two days. I've done it. My friends do it all the time. College students often have less time than that. Anna needs to suck it up.

The best way to get a paper done is to procrastinate.

Pam and Lulu are such losers.
Lulu: I finished my paper about Mount Morris. It's five pages long. Now all I have to do is make sure there aren't any mistakes.
[Writing about Mount Morris was a pretty big mistake.]
Pam: I almost finished mine, too. I learned so much about ballpoint pens. They used to leak like crazy.
[Golly, Lulu! Ballpoint pens are so fascinating!! They used to leak!! If you got to write a research paper on ANYTHING in the world, wouldn't you write about something controversial or interesting??]

I want to know where they get these lifesize ponies.

Out of all the crappy illustrators for the Pony Pals books, Richard Jones is my favorite. These illustrations are pretty stellar.

Tommy and Mike start pelting them with acorns. Ouch.

Ms. Wiggins wants to paint an angel pony, in honor of Winston. XP

WHOAAA!!! Ms. Wiggins has always been tall and thin with dark hair. Now she's tall and thin with BLONDE hair!!!

Some of Anna's ideas include a devil pony and a striped pony. Heheh. I like the devil pony, but it's too Satanic for Anna.

Anna's mom makes her stay home to write her paper...so Anna goes off to ride with the Pony Pals. I foresee a "Lion King" discipline scene. "You deliberately disobeyed me!"

Now we know the reason the boys hate the Pony Pals so much.
Mike: Hey, man. Why'd we have to keep following them?
Tommy: Because we want to mess up their stupid little Pony Pest day. We'll go in the cave and make ghost noises. That'll freak them out. Then it can be our hideout. Get it?
Got it. You're stupid.

5 seconds later, Tommy steps in horse crap.

Mike and Tommy are lost in the woods, so the Pony Pals draw them a map.
Unfortunately, Tommy's bike has a flat tire.
So he takes MIKE'S bike and leaves Mike with HIS bike!
Jerk.

This book was written in 2003, so the Pony Pals are all high-tech, using e-mail.

Lame lame lame. Anna can't decide on a research topic, so she picks Shetland ponies.

She prints out 36 pages on Shetland ponies!!! I'll bet she ran out of ink.

Ha. The Pony Pals are so mean to Tommy.

I hate that misbehaving ponies are never punished. I'm not saying they need to be whipped to death, but hello? Acorn opens the gate with his mouth and steals all their cookies! That's not cute, he could escape and die!!!

Yeah! Mike likes the devil pony, too!!

NOYCE! Mr. Remington the librarian is painting a pony that looks just like Harry Potter!!
Wait, so he has Daniel Radcliffe hair and everything?
Noyce.

Anna got a B-plus and the teacher wrote "Good job" on the paper. No. If you're going to write "Good job", give her at least an A!!!
Maybe it was for grammar mistakes.

Mike is making spaghetti for dinner.
What is wrong with these carb-obsessed freaks!!??

Anna has only 2 days to paint the pony, so her friends decide to take shorter trail rides.
You could always NOT trail ride, giving your more time to paint.

Mike told Tommy about the Pony contest, when he told Anna he WOULDN'T tell!!!
Betrayed!!!

I can't believe he ruined her pony. What a jerk.

Anna honestly thinks Mike did it.
Mike would never do a thing like that, Anna. He loves you.

Tommy practically confesses.

Awwww. Mike offers to help repaint the pony.

Some of the other pony ideas weren't so stellar:
Tuxedo Pony, Patriotic Pony, Glitter Pony, Little Red Riding Pony, Unicorn Pony, Baseball Pony, and Sky Pony are some of them.

AAAAH, THE PONY PALS ARE SO EVIL...BUT FUNNY!
Mrs. Rand: Anna Harley, this is perfect copy of Acorn. Absolutely perfect. Acorn was such a good pony. I miss him.
Lulu: I think Tommy misses Acorn, too.
Pam: He talks about Acorn sometimes.
Mrs. Rand: I'm so glad you told me that. Tommy's growing up so fast. Sometimes I don't recognize my sweet little boy.
Anna: Maybe you should buy My Pony at the auction. Then Tommy can always remember his time with Acorn.
Tee hee.

Mr. Olson almost buys the Acorn Pony!!! Go away, creepy pedophile!! Go back to your cowboy nephew!!

Mrs. Rand wins.

OH NO!
Mrs. Rand: Acorn was my son's pony. He's missed him. Now he'll always have Acorn.

Aaah, good times, good times.
Only one more Pony Pals book to go!!
And Lulu's moving to Africa!! Oh no!!!

I can't think of a witty title for this one, or Super Special #2: Pony Pals: The Story of Our Ponies

I used to like this one. But now I really hate all super specials. And I have no idea how Super Special #4 is going to work, because its in the perspective of all three characters, but its mostly about Pam being a peacemaker and Lulu and Anna being brats. AS USUAL.



Plot: Snow White had a son! Who knew? The son, named Snowflake, comes to Wiggins with his owner Mark. Lulu really enjoys learning fascinating things about Snow White and decides to write her life story. Pam and Anna, being copy cats, do the same thing with their ponies.
Basically the whole book is about the history of the ponies.
Yay, Snow White was raised by Mark.
Yay, Acorn was owned by someone with cerebral palsy who gained confidence from ponies.
Yay, Lightning was born in Ireland.
When they're all done learning, the Pony Pals make a book and donate it to the library.
Oh yeah, and Snowflake is being sold and Lulu wants to buy him, but can't, so the Pony Pals try to force Mrs. Wiggins to buy him. That seems to be their motto: When in doubt, make Ms. Wiggins buy a pony.
But Snowflake goes to a little girl in Falls City, which *gasp* is very close to Wiggins! The day is saved!

More notes:
Snowflake is kind of a bad name for a boy horse.

"Snow White's story". How original.

"We'll help you with spelling." Or you could use a computer...with spellcheck!

Pam has a mosquito bite on her forehead. Or so she says.

I wish the Mrs. Crandal would stop mentioning Splash and Daisy every 5 seconds.

I like how they were all shocked that Victoria Winters would want to sell horses for a living, but are completely cool with Mark doing it for a living. Cuz Mark's a hottie.

Lulu looks all Emily Strange in one picture.

Rema doesn't want Mark to think she's nice; she wants Mark to think she's sexually desirable.

Didn't we already know that Acorn had 8 owners?

Wait, how old is Mr. Olson is Acorn's mother was his childhood pony...? Acorn is way old.

Connemaras are Irish. Shockingly enough, Lightning was born in Ireland.

Lulu wants Marks' body. I remember writing a Pony Pals story where Lulu married Mark, Anna married Charlie and worked at a diner because she was poor, and Pam just became all mean and didn't marry Tommy? It was lame. And something about a black horse named Samson. Because I am obsessed with black horses named Samson.

If they want this book to seem all professional, they shouldn't type stuff like, "Snow White is my beautiful pony. Hugs and kisses forever."

Pam loves unnecessary information. "Four years ago my mother and father bought a Connemara pony from you. Her name is Lightning and she is mine." Right. Duh. And those sentences could've been combined into one shorter sentence.

Pony Pal Pancake Special? I think this is supposed to be a joke: blueberry pancakes...*stifles giggle*...WITH A CARROT ON TOP!!! Yeah, not funny.

PONIES DO NOT HAVE PLAYDATES!!! Dogs have playdates. Little kids have playdates. Ponies don't do playdates.

"Beauty looks so beautiful!" Ha. Couldn't think of a different adjective.

I like how all the Pony Pals take credit for "saving Beauty's life" when it was mostly Pam.

Sally Southack uses crutches because she has a disability, not because she fell off Acorn!!! Geez, Anna. What is he, like 3 feet off the ground?

Sally sounds Southern (ew, alliteration). "Acorn, get yourself over here!"

Sally = way pretty.

Anna likes unnecessary information, too. "Pam is going to write down what you say about Acorn. It's hard for me to listen and write at the same time. I'm dyslexic." You could've said, "I'm dyslexic."

Shetland ponies do not cause cerebral palsy.

Where do they get off talking about Tommy behind his back? They've told at least 6 people already, "He's a show offy jerk pants!"

I hate people that name their horses full sentences, such as Like the Wind, or Dapperton's Dapper Dappy Dappled Dimple. And then they give them nicknames that are totally unrelated, like Ranger, because he likes grass???

"Connemara ponies live like goats in the hills." Ooooookay, does that imply that they act like goats? A less confused way to say it would be, "Connemara ponies live in the hills like goats."

Yay, an owner that actually gives the horse credit!

"Maybe Lightning should've been left in the wild...." Yeah, and then she could starve to death with the rest of her kind.

Anna has never used e-mail. Yes.

Aaargh, because Mr. Kelly is Irish, he has to use words like "wee" and "creature" and "fine" and say stuff in Gaelic.

Winnie-the-Pooh can't be classified as a teddy bear.

There's not much Tommy can do to you when you're on horseback. Stupid Anna.

They hyphenate AND italicize "all right". Pam says it, "All-right!"

Aw, Tommy looks so cute as Winnie-the-Pooh. Acorn, on the other hand, is the ugliest Acorn I have ever seen.

"Acorn is my best friend. I can tell him all of my problems." I would not want that published.

Because I'm also dyslexic, I thought the first sentence said something about the Pony Pals eating hay. I was all, "Wth???? Is this how you get your kicks? Chewing grass? Most people smoke it...."

I doubt your dad is going to be willing to buy you another pony, Lulu. Especially since the last time you bought one it turned out to be a sickly wimp.

Mr. Sanders is in India again???

Mrs. Crandal only has two ponies: Splash and Daisy. What? What did she do before book #6??? I think she could afford another pony. BUY SNOWFLAKE!

Sucking up NEVER works.

Argh, shut up, Lulu, about stupid Snowflake. It hurts her freaking heart. Suck it up.

I thought this was a story about Lightning's life. A step-by-step process of how Lightning was put into an airplane isn't that vital to the story.

Lightning used to be anorexic. And cute. WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU???

Ugh, a little joke about the stupid upside-down heart on Lightning's head.

STOP MENTIONING THOSE STUPID KITTENS!!!! We get it, Lightning's a HERO!!!

Heh. I can make copies for free at school. Although I don't really have any copies I want to make.

Lulu making me way angry. NO ONE CARES ABOUT SNOWFLAKE!

Confusing illustration on the cover of the book: there is a pasture and some grass, but the pony has no body. Just a head. Floating in the grass?

She already bought Beauty. I don't think Ms. Wiggins wants another sickly pony.

But she sees through their scam. Like it was so subtle.

"We used all of our Pony Pal power. It just didn't work this time." Or maybe you don't have any power.

Oh, because I want to waste time reading a book about ponies written by ten-year-olds.

Ew, Mark likes hanging out with Pony Pals.

I notice whenever their is a pony for sale, it's auctioned off to some little dark-haired girl who is never seen again. Besides Lulu.

That was lame. But not as lame as "The Blind Pony", which is coming up next. Bah, ten-year-olds.

I'm not stupid, just misunderstood, or Pony Pals #2: A Pony For Keeps

This book is listed as Reading Level ages 9 to 12. Uh, I don't think so. Or maybe I'm just a genius.

Acorn is always described as black and brown (why can't they say bay???) but I always thought he looked more yellow. Anna looks relatively tiny compared to Acorn.

Plot: Anna loves Acorn. Acorn loves Anna. It's a perfect match. But Anna's parents blame Acorn for Anna's bad grades (or maybe she's just dumb), and threaten to get rid of him unless she gets A's on her report card.
Report cards come back. C-, C-, D, D...A IN ART! But no, that's not good enough, so Acorn's a goner. So Anna does the mature thing and decides to run away from home.
That's right. She skips school and goes riding with Acorn and they jump, bla bla bla, but then she gets caught by the Wiggins Witch!!! Duh, that's what you get when you trespass...
But it turns out the Wiggins Witch is really a nice woman named Wilhelmina Wiggins who loves ponies as much as Anna!!! Good golly! And it turns out that Anna is dyslexic, and so is Willie! So they become BEST PALS.
Anna tells the Pony Pals about her learning disability and Pam enforces the crappy three ideas rule. Aaargh... But before they can put all of them into practice, ACORN DISAPPEARS! It looks like Anna's parents really wanted him gone.
But YAY! The Pony Pals explain to Mrs. Harley that Anna isn't stupid and Acorn isn't distracting her, and Mrs. Harley willingly forks over a couple thou to buy Acorn for Anna. So Anna buys Acorn! YAY! ACORN AND ANNA FOREVER! *puke*

More notes:
Pam decides it's okay to trespass on private property, because those signs are OBVIOUSLY referring to hunters, not kids on ponies.

Ugh. Fifth grade humor. Did I make jokes like this in 5th grade?
Anna: That's a big house. I heard it has 27 rooms.
Lulu: I bet she hasn't left the house for 27 years.
Pam: And has 27 cats.
Anna: And hasn't taken a bath in 27 weeks!
All: TEE HEE HEE!
Grrrr....

Another Acorn and Snow White lovefest. I always thought when I was little that they would fall in love and make little horsey babies together. Maybe they did; I never read the one where Snow White has a baby.

Rema Baxter doesn't want Snow White getting attached to Lulu. Then maybe you should go home and take care of your pony!!!! Loser.

Suddenly everyone hates Acorn.
Pam: Maybe Acorn's the wrong pony for you.
Maybe you don't DESERVE a pony.

Anna uses the phrase "pretty ponies". And you wonder why I chose that title...

Mr. Olsen seems anxious to sell this Morgan. He tries to sell it to each of the Pony Pals until book #4. If it's such a great horse, HOW COME NO ONE'S BOUGHT IT???

And how come he has such a big horse farm in a small town? Everyone probably already has a horse, and it's not like he's world renowned so people from all over buy his ponies. Horses. Animals.

I hate it when authors spell things out, like T-E-R-M-S O-F S-A-L-E, and expect you to read each letter seperately.

Oh no, bossy Tommy Rand owned Acorn! How horrible! Heh. Tommy's first appearance. After this, he's a regular character. And he's way ugly. And his best friend's angsty.

Anna's all shocked that Tommy doesn't miss Acorn. Yeah. He's a boy who likes trapping animals for fun (more on that in book #10). I don't think he's big on ponies.

Tammy: Can't you guys leave her alone? Maybe she's doing the best she can.
Mr. Harley: I doubt it. I know this girl. Her brain's are as good as yours and her brother's. All my kids are smart. Anna's too easily distracted and draws when she should be writing. Seems to me that Acorn is the biggest distraction of them all.
That's so mean. I would wait till she was out of the room before I said this. Maybe she has a learning disability...or she's just dumb. That IS a common ailment. Some things in that sentence were quite grammatically incorrect.

Anna = so short. And Pam still has an afro puff that magically disappears in the next book.

(Anna's parents are selling Acorn.)
"We're doing this for your own good." Yeah, that's what my parents said about private schooling. Bull.

LULU FALLS FOR ANNA'S SICK RUSE! And Anna skips school! Isn't this a little risque` for a children's book? Aren't we trying to teach good morals?

Anna is surprised that a grown woman on a huge horse could catch up with her on a Shetland pony.

Willie talks like she's Southern, without the accent. And Anna starts telling her her life story five seconds after she meets her. Um, dramatic much? I guess it doesn't matter that she was trespassing.

AAAGH, ANOTHER PETA MESSAGE ABOUT HUNTING! What is this, "The Most Dangerous Game"?

After this book, Jeanne Betancourt had trouble with the continuity of Mrs. Wiggins name. Sometimes it was Wilhelmina, sometimes it was Winifred, sometimes it was Wilma.... I really hate the name Wilma.

Mrs. Wiggins is totally cool with cutting school. Right.

Mrs. Wiggins = way creeping me out. She's going to invite them over for dinner any minute, and then eat their souls.

Is no one seeing how questionable this situation is? Oh, and the Pony Pals decide not to tell Anna's parents that Anna ran away and go looking for her themselves. A bunch of ten-year-olds alone on horseback. Sooo safe.

Pam again, being a control freak. "THREE IDEAS! TOMORROW! 5 SHARP!"

Pam supposedly has the best handwriting, and it's worse than mine.

I know she doesn't like spelling, but come on. And her drawings are a little hard to figure out. Is that a cat?
Specshel tudor + *bad drawing of pony* = *smiley face?*
Pam: Your drawings are so great.
Yeah right.

Heh. I love the picture on page 72. Pam and Lulu are shocked, and Anna's just smiling. Isn't she supposed to be sad? They just took Acorn away.

Anna is sorry she's stupid. You should be.

Pam and Lulu are responsible enough to run a diner by themselves. Right.

"Acorn was so glad to see her that he stopped eating." What? Does he have an eating disorder now? Can happiness really do that?

Doesn't tutoring cost a lot? Why are they letting Anna do it for free? Is she poor and they feel sorry for her?

Aaaah, that whole book just bummed me out because it was boring and it reminded me of a Clubhouse Jr. issue that was supposed to be about horses and it was about dyslexia. JUST LIKE THIS BOOK. Graaaah. I have #3, which I never finished cuz it sucked. I'll maybe finish that tonight. I'm going through these things like water. See ya.