Friday 29 July 2011

Fetlocks Hall 3: The Curse of the Vampire Ponies by Babbette Cole (7 years +)


June 2011, Bloomsbury
128 pages, Paperback
Review copy

Children's, 7 years + 

life at boarding school, pony mad children, friendships, strange acquaintances, more ghoulish help, pony vampires, school inspection 

Summary from Bloomsbury

Penny Simms is pony mad and is more than a little upset when a flock of foul-smelling pony vampires are found at the equestrian boarding school that she attends. They have been sent by the wicked Devlipeds to disrupt an official health and safety inspection, which the school must pass or risk being closed down.

With the help of her intrepid friends, Penny does her best to rid the school of the unwelcome guests with hilarious and unexpected results.

Nayuleska's reasons for loving Penny...she's the only one who can save ponies from the pony vampire bites. She is also the only one to liaise between feuding ghosts/friends. 

How evil/nasty is the enemy? You'd think that having a school inspection is bad enough, but the real enemy is the one who brought Fetlocks Hall to the inspectors' attention - they want it to be closed, so have highlighted parts of school life which aren't up to standard of 'normal' schools. 

Are there plenty of plot twists and surprises? I as read the book there were lots of cheers and boos as the story unfolded. Plenty to keep a reader interested, especially if they've read the previous books. They can be read out of order - I managed to read the books in the wrong order after book 1 by accident. Still made perfect sense. 

My favourite part was...when Penny had to overcome obstacles to help save her own pony, Patch. It was touch and go in a lot of places. 

This third book in the series gains 10/10 from me. 

Check out more about Fetlocks Hall on Babbette's website

Suggested read
Make sure you've read the previous books, which start with book one, The Unicorn Princess (book two is The Ghostly Blinkers


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