Get It Now Smoky, The Cow Horse Drafted By Will James Presented As Digital Format

this was quite the story and it made me cry too! Sometimes these stories do that and I get all emotional.
Smoky sure had an eventful life and I must say this book had headed into places I had never expected.
I guess it might be to show what a horse's life can be like and that everyone has different ideas about horses amp what they are good for.


Parts of this book reminded me of some of the things I had read about in "Wolf Willow" recently.
You have cowboys out on huge areas of land rustling up cows, And Smoky is there with the cowboy he trusts, Clint, And Clint is the only one who can ride Smoky too as that horse is wild! But he is very smart too.
And he actually enjoys doing his job, catching those white faced cows as it makes him feel very useful and it's something he's very good at.
The majority of this story is from Smoky's viewpoint, And Smoky has a heart and a wide range of emotions, He goes through a lot,

The story draws you in right away from the start with the birth of Smoky, And he is such a curious little colt, Brave too and even a bit foolish, The story moves along at a good pace and many events happen, . . a few were shocking! There was at least one awful character I had hated two actually but one was far worse than the other.
This will make your emotions surge and for awhile there I was very uncertain how it would end: good or bad.
I knew what I had hoped might happen but you can never be certain can you I also feel the story points out a few good things that equestrians need to remember: that the horse is a living creature and its not there just to ride for pleasure.
It needs rest and decent food too, Plus it's a herd animal,

And while I had greatly enjoyed reading this I will admit there are a few things in here that I don't understand.
Like why do they keep calling Smoky a gelding As far as I know the only procedure he had done was a branding of the ranch's logo on his hide so shouldn't he have turned into a stallion But they were calling him a gelding since he was practically a colt!

The other thing that confused me is the way they raised horses amp cattle in this story.
They just let huge herds of them run wild over great hunks of land and then go rustle them up at certain times of year.
Do they still do this today I admit I have no idea! But its so very different from the ranches that I am familiar with here in

the Midwest.
Of course this was written back inso things were very different, . . but it just is so odd to me! What is to stop their animals from running away And just now.
. . looking at that date ofI just realized this story is almostyears old!

And yes, there is lots of wild bronco action in here as the cover suggests.
But the story is really about the heart of a horse and his emotions through a long, difficult life.
This book deserves two Newberry medals, At first I was distracted by the cowboy slang, However, soon enough, the story got going and that concern was gone, The author clearly had a great admiration for horses, Wonderfully written. Descriptions like these can only be born out of years of careful observation, Highly recommended! I fought my way to the end but this came very close to being DNF, It is one of the best examples I can give for a book having outlived its utility, It was obvious to me that this book was going the same path as the old classic, Black Beauty.
Good childhood, loved and treated well, turn in life till practically dead, then a final end of good again.
Except that Black Beauty was well bred and Smoky was a wild horse,
The parts of the book dealing with the horse was good but the “bad guy” was just plain racist.
Clearly the baddie couldnt be an American so it was made into a “half breed” Mexican, Disgusting! It wouldnt have changed the book one bit, and an editor today would have had the author remove it.
Unfortunately the author just had to repeat the phrasing one or two more times,
By that time I had wasted enough time that I was determined to finish it, But all the interest was gone, I read everything but I was really relieved when I finished! This book is ok in that it showed how to train a horse without killing its spirit but I cant think of another use for this book.
While Im not saying the book should be banned, I would tend to make it a ref book and hand out only if specifically asked.
I would rather read Black Beauty again and hand that out, The Marguerite Henry books cover the same sort of horse material, If the author was alive and I were his editor, Id try to get just a few words changed to make it fit our times.

But with the racism in there and how darn BORING this book was, I just cannot recommend this at all!Newbery How I missed this book as a horse book loving kid, I will never know.
The vernacular in the book is charming and meant to be accessible, Perhaps it's a good invitation to help young readers and writers to find their voice, The horsemanship is quite wonderful in that the author changes the name of the horse throughout his life as a reflection of how the horse feels in his heart and his relation to humans.
He does it artfully to be sure, I only have one major issue with the story and I'm tempted to chalk it up to the time it was written but it should be pointed out to young readers that the "bad guys" in the story are all dark skinned and the "good guys" look like an ad for cigarettes.
ThisNewbery Winner follows the life of a range horse, from his birth to being put out to pasture for retirement.
James makes the horse the center of the story, and tells it as realistically as possible while making Smoky an exceptional beast.
He never voices an opinion, let alone talks James tries to express silent instinct or antipathy without anthropomorphizing the animal.
Smoky isnt actually his name, except inasmuch as a bronco buster named Clint calls him that for a while.
Most of his life hes free on the range, learning to stay with the herd, avoid and kill rattlesnakes, fight wolves, and so on.
Annually he is corralled and made to do range work, herding steer, which he grows to enjoy, He later goes by the Cougar as a famous cowboykilling bucker, and then Cloudy as an indifferent riding horse for dude equestrians.
Things look bleakest for him when, older and enfeebled by a lifetime of action, hes sold as a workhorse, regularly beaten and mistreated.
Of course theres a happy ending, but James lets it unfold with patience nothing is neatly packaged or trite, and Smoky is far from a pet, or even tame, even at the end.


Its a superior animal story, made a bit difficult by two factors, One, James writes in a subliterate dialect “them horses was running,” “If Smoky could only knowed, thered been a lot of suffering which he wouldnt had tove went thru”, which may have been intentional or not, but either way its not charming or conducive to good reading practice.
Words such as “gait” are even misspelled, which indicates that the dialect may have been the best James could do.
Second, and far worse, theres a deep racism in the book, The two villains are Mexican one is referred to with contempt as a “breed” halfMexican, half “other blood thats darker” with no morals.
The other is a similarly immoral, cruel man who is beaten in front of a laughing sheriff who stops the fight only because it would make work for him, “same as if he were a white man.
” Unfortunate, because James is a decent storyteller, and though I dont care for animal tales as a rule, this one drew me in.
Its a product of its time, certainly, This was written almostyears ago and the pacing differs from what we've come to expect, It took a little longer than usual to get into the story, but once we became familiar with Smoky, we were hooked.
I read this aloud with one of my nieces, I read this book to my little girl who is nowwhen she was in the elementaryfirst learning to read.

It's a good horse book telling the life of Smoky and that part I think is what fascinates children.
How he starts off shy and timid, But when he's moved to the working ranch He toughens up gets stronger, The illustrations are what set this edition apart, Front cover pasteboard, front and back endsheets, andmore color full page plates throughout the text, The first reproductions of James' oils, His art makes all the difference, sitelink cdaartauction. com/consign/ His story isn't bad either sort of standard Black Beauty West but for a kid's book it's all good stuff.
I started out by reading animal stories I loved them and this 'Smoky' is as good as it gets.


But then there was this jolt at page: "Say cowboy," he finally says, "don't scatter that hombre's remains too much you know we got to keep record of that kind the same as if it was a white man.
. . " Pretty much an accepted view circa, Maybe even could be considered progressive for the period of our shameful history, The worst of it is that attitude is still to this day way too prevalent, The Bad Guys there are several are both of dark complexion, White Hat Black Hat ethics for the simpleminded,

It's a shame he drank himself to an early grave, His art and writing both suffered as the alcohol took over his life,

When I was a little kid Cowboy was King, I seem to be going through a spell of obsessing on the life and works of Will James.
First edition copies of his books are a tad expensive, Just can't see buying a modern reproduction, I want the feel of those ninetysome years, I definitely remember reading this book before well before I had goodreads and liking it fine, Trying to read it again, I hated it, It was boring, the dialect bugged me, and I am not a horse girl, Oh god, I am so sorry for disagreeing with Kaia about how horrible this book was! This here book is about Smoky.
Smoky was a mousecolored horse, all colored like a mouse and bucking,

The winter come, all wintery and wintered, and the mousecolored Smoky, all mousecolored in the wintery winter, bucked and bucked.
"That there horse bucks some," says Clint, "I seen some bucking in my days, and this one bucks.
" And the winter wintered some more, the ground all groundy and brown, perfect for horses the color of mouses if mousecolored horses bucked.


And one day yonder, the ground all grounded and the winter becoming spring, the bucking mousecolored horse bucked and bucked until winter come again and the ground beneath that horse the color of a mouse was all groundy and brown.


"Shit, that horse can buck," says Clint, all squinty and cowboyey, as mousecolored Smoky bucked and bucked and, while bucking, bucked his buck until he couldn't buck no more.
The winter had come, all wintery, and Smoky bucked until spring, "Goddamn, that horse the color of a mouse can buck, "

Another winter wintered and the ground was all groundy and there was a mesa and some geldings and colts on that grounded ground, all wintery until the spring came.
No geldings or colts bucked like Smoky, though, and that bucking came at a price, Spring had come at last, and there was bucking to be bucked, "That there Smoky is a good, mousecolored cowhorse, all bucking and horsey and colored like a mouse," Clint crowed, all crowlike.


The winter, all wintery, wintered back and then it was time for spring, Smoky, mousecolored and colored a bit like a mouse, bucked a buck or two or three or seventy and then the ground was all brown and groundy while Smoky bucked until bucking was outbucked.
"That's a fine bucking horse there, "

JESUS GOD IN HEAVEN

Well, folks, With Smoky the Cowhorse, I have finished my Newbery quest, Allmedal winners have been read, and this repetitive shitstack just so happens to be the capstone of my yearslong quest.
It was a terrible way to end the journey, but most every book from thes ands has been godawful.


Frankly, if Smoky had just been the lastpages minus the appalling racism shoehorned in for no good reason except to be appallingly racist, the book would have been dull but tolerable with flashes of occasional interest.
Alas, those finalpage were not worth thepages that came before it,

But I did it, I read this bucking book,

I did it so you didn't have to, fellow children's lit fans, Fellow Newbery completionists.

It's been real, Newbery winners,

Mostly real boring, but real all the same, Smoky is a mousecolored horse which is born on the range, After a couple of years, he is taken to the Rocking R Ranch where he is trained by a thirtyyearold cowboy named Clint to be a cowhorse.
The cowhorses work during the spring, summer, and fall on the ranch, but are let back out on the range to forage in the winter.
Clint, who is especially fond of the mousecolored horse, always tries to check on Smoky through each winter, but one year he is detained for several reasons, and when he finally goes out on the range he finds that the cowhorse, as well as the whole herd with which he has been hanging out, is gone.
What has happened to Smoky And will Clint ever see him again

ThisNewbery Medalist, sometimes considered to be the original American “horse tale” for children, has a lot of details about horses, their breeding, their moods, the lives of cowboys, and cattle roundups, along with a strong indictment of cruelty to animals.
It tells about Smokys life as a wild mustang, a cowhorse, a bucking bronco named “The Cougar,” a stable riding horse called Cloudy, and finally a harness horse.
There are some references to smoking and “cussing,” although no actual cuss words are used besides the “h” word uttered once by the villain and found in a couple of expressions such as “hell to breakfast” and “hell bent for election,” along with a few common euphemisms and a lot of “daggones” and “doggones.
” Otherwise, there is nothing objectionable,

The narration is done in a folksy “cowboy” slang style“Smoky must of been in the middle of some bad dreamthe was fading away and the buffalo hunters had went to rest.
” Obviously, the book should not be used to teach good grammar except perhaps by negative example, Some people have objected to the bad grammar saying that it is hard to read, but like the Southern slave dialect of the “Uncle Remus” stories or the Scottish brogue of Kidnapped, it is simply preserving in print a way of speaking common to a certain time and place.
A few times I had to read back over something to make sure that I understood it, but for the most part the grammar wont keep one from enjoying the story, and, in fact, the writing style just adds to the charm.
It is highly recommended for young horse lovers, .