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The Red Pony by John Steinbeck, reviewed by Adam R.

In this book, John Steinbeck is able to expertly write as well as mesh together four different stories revolving around one boy’s life on a ranch. Steinbeck also describes the landscape of the ranch and the actions taken by the various characters extremely well. In The Red Pony, the main character, Jody Tiflin, learns important moral lessons in each of the different stories of the book. Furthermore, the relationship of Jody and his father changes throughout the course of the book.

The Red Pony opens with the first story, “The Gift.” In this story, Jody, who lives on a farm with his mother, father, and the cow hand, Billy Buck, is told by his father that he has something special for Jody in the morning. Extremely excited and anxious, the following morning Jody finds a new red pony in the barn, which he names Gabilan after the great Gabilan Mountains. Unfortunately however, Gabilan is a very sick horse who suffers from a dangerous breathing problem. Reoccurring health problems for Gabilan tear Jody part as he is so fearful for whether or not his horse will be okay. However, Billy tells Jody that he will be able to heal Gabilan and Jody must wait to see whether or not his horse that he loves so dearly will survive.

The second story within the book is called, “The Great Mountains.” In this part of the book, Jody becomes fascinated by the mysterious Great Mountains which none of his family members can truly describe to him. Later on, a man named Gitano who claims he was born in the house that still remains on the Tiflin property requests to stay on the ranch until he dies. Carl Tiflin, Jody’s father, is against this and will only let Gitano stay the night. Jody asks Gitano about the Great Mountains. Gitano responded by saying he has been to the mountains before, but remembers very little. Jody then shows Gitano his father’s first horse, Easter, who Gitano develops a liking to. Furthermore, Carl continuously stresses to Gitano that he must leave in the morning, and after dinner, Gitano quietly returns to his room. However, the following morning when Gitano leaves, he takes something with him that does not belong to him.

The third story is called, “The Promise.” In this story, Jody’s father and Billy decide it would be best for Jody to raise a baby horse form birth. Nellie, a female horse is then taken by Jody to be bred with a stallion that belongs to Jess Taylor, who lives on the neighboring ranch. Months after the breeding, Billy warns Jody of the potential dangers of Nellie giving birth which happens to frighten Jody. As time passes and Nellie gets larger, Billy finally tells Jody to come to the barn to whiteness the birth. Unfortunately, Billy can tell there is something wrong with Nellie before the birth, and it is up to him to try to save both Nellie as well as the colt.

The final story in this book is “The Leader of the People.” In this part of the book, Jody’s grandfather on his mother’s side comes to visit. However, Carl does not like the grandfather very much considering all of the stories he always repeats. Just as Carl had predicted, once the grandfather arrived, he spoke nonstop of the stories the entire family had already heard. After overhearing Carl putting down the grandfather’s stories, the grandfather becomes insulted and stops telling stories for the duration of his visit. Jody then becomes saddened by the sudden change in grandfather, and attempts to find to ways to cheer him up and comfort him.

This book has a number of positive aspects to it. The author truly gives the reader a sense of what living on a ranch is like. Steinbeck does this by describing the physical landscape, the farm animals, and how a farming family functions. In addition, this book displays how a story does not need a happy ending in order to be entertaining for the reader. Furthermore, the description that Steinbeck uses is extremely good, and is really able to captivate the reader. Finally, the fact that the book involved four different stories is very unique and quite enjoyable.

However, there are some negatives aspects to the book as well. Certain portions in the story tend to move a bit slowly and might result in losing the readers attention. Also, since the book was split into different story lines, certain stories weren’t as exciting or interesting as the others. Overall, the occasional slow or boring portions of the various stories definitely took away from the book as a whole.

In conclusion, The Red Pony deserves four out of five stars. This book really gets the reader to feel some of the emotions that the characters deal with throughout the story. Also, the fact that this book was split into four stories had both positive as well as negative impacts on the outcome of the book. Lastly, after reading this book, a reader might be able to appreciate life on a farm more than they had before and also have a greater understanding between a person and his pet.