Stormy Misty's Foal

            Over the past month I have been reading Stormy Misty's Foal written by Marguerite Henry. The story takes place in a non ficticous island named Chincoteague. Chincoteague is an island located on the east coast of Virginia. To the right of that island is another island. The name of this island is Assateague. The interesting point upon this island is that it's a sanctuary where ponies can run free. The story says that the pony population started from the European explorers who brought them there. In order to enter the island of Assateague in car you must have a permit. Every year there an event called pony penning day. This event is held during the summer for three days. The wild ponies are rounded up and they have to run across Chincoteague island. Then the ponies get auction. Every year the Chincotague fire department controls how many ponies wll be auction.

 

              The Beebes own a ranch recognized by all the residents in the island. On this ranch there's a pregnent horse. Her name is misty. This mother had a tradgic event on the week that she was going to give birth. A suprise hurricane came upon Chiconteague island. This hurricane happened to be a suprise because it occured during march and during the early 1960's. Misty's owner put her in his kitchen. The Beebes were then transported by a helicopter to Virginia's mainland. After the hurricane passed away Mr. Beebe and his grandson Paul helped to get the dead ponies off the island. This was quite sad because many ponies on the ranch and Assateague island died. To their suprise when the Beebes returned to their home they saw that the cat had a litter but Misty was holding her foal in. After the catastrophe was gone the mother gave birth to a male foal. Everyone was excited. People traveled from afar to see Misty's foal. The name of the foal was decided by the letters that the Beebes recieved. The name election turned out to be Stormy. Later Stormy and Misty started traveling to places for money. The money that was collected was for buying back ponies sold in the auctions. The Beebes did this so they could have ponny penning day again. There were not sufficent ponies after the hurricane to have an auction from there. Many of the events that occured were true.

Read a preview of the book http://books.google.com/books?id=Uf10dMALiaAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=misty's+foal&source=bl&ots=n0rvYWmqtQ&sig=-Z9GcCmbCFtDxGP-miNsAAyMjMA&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false

            I thought this book was a great classic. From this story I learned some geography. I didn't know that Virginia actually had wild horses located on an island. At first the book seem really informational which seemed that the plot was going really slow. Once The reader gets to the middle of the story that's when it becomes action packed. I reccomend that this book should be read by animal lovers because this story shows the appreciation that the people have for wild ponies. I've learned that just because a book is old doesn't mean it's boring.