Misty of Chincoteague

On Chincoteague Island, the annual pony penning contest is taking place at the end of July. Since 1925, around 50,000 people gather each year to watch 150 wild ponies herded off Assateague Island. They swim across the channel, are rounded up, examined, and auctioned. If you aren’t in Virginia at this time, you can watch some clips from the event on YouTube.

Or, even better, you can read Marguerite Henry’s Misty of Chincoteague. Henry’s editor encouraged her to write about the pony penning on the island, and Henry and her illustrator Wesley Dennis headed to Virginia to make sketches, take photographs, and get a sense of the place. She visited the Beebe Ranch and saw one of their horses, marked with a white map of America on her coat. Because Henry desperately wanted this animal to come stay with her in Illinois, she bargained with Mr. Beebe, offering to make his children the two main characters in her novel. Henry kept her word and wrote a story about Maureen and Paul Beebe who long for one of the wild ponies, descendants of a stallion named Fire Chief who was traveling on a Spanish ship that went down in a gale. The children eventually manage to raise enough money to buy Misty.

After Henry returned to her home, Misty came to stay in her household. When Henry wrote, she brought Misty into her studio and even allowed the horse access to the living room. Once the story was finished, Henry took the horse on book tour, and Misty sold a lot of copies. Henry visited schools, libraries, and book shows. In 1948, when Henry won the Newbery Medal for King of the Wind, she even brought Misty to the American Library Association Annual Convention in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Misty was made an honorary member of the ALA—probably the only horse to become one. Modern children’s book authors often consider themselves quite clever when it comes to book promotion—but I have never seen any idea as brilliant as touring with Misty of Chincoteague.

Misty eventually returned to the Beebe farm, had colts, and lived to the age of twenty-six. Because some of the ranch has been preserved, those who visit the island can still see it. In fact, most of the people who are now on Chincoteague to witness pony-penning days come to these events because of this beloved book, one of the greatest horse stories ever told.

A section from Misty of Chincoteague: