Noni the Pony – Alison Lester

“Noni the Pony is friendly and funny. Her shimmering tail is the colour of honey.” And so we are introduced to Noni the Pony with strong and simple rhyming text. She lives on a farm on Waratah Bay with her friends Coco the Cat and Dave Dog who she plays with most of the day. The book draws of the experience of the author, Alison Lester who grew up on a farm by the sea and had early experiences with horses.
The story line uses very clean rhyming words so the children will be able to guess what the last word of the second line is. The illustrations of the characters are bold and bright and are stuck on to a softer toned background. I especially like the twilight backgrounds that Lester has used in the later pages.
However I found Noni the Pony uninspiring. Perhaps I am judging this book a little too harshly because it is up for an Children's Book Council of Australian award. It is a lovely presented book and there is a lot of poor quality children's book in print and I would not but this book in that category. Perhaps the story is too straight forward but nothing really seems to happen. But I am also not a horse person and neither are the little ones in my family.
It was read only once in our household and although it sat in our book box for a few weeks it wasn't pull out and requested to be read again.     6/10

This book is  short listed Book of the Year: Early Childhood by the Children's Book Council of Australia.
To view the book being read click here.