Leah's Pony

Leah's Pony
By: Elizabeth Friedrich
Illustrated by: Michael Garland
Historical Fiction

This story is about a young girl whose family lives on a farm. Leah's father buys her a black and white pony and teaches her how to put the saddle on just right. Her pony is beautiful and during the summer she rides it through the corn pastures and cornfields into town. Their family is faced with hard times because of the Great Depression and Leah's mother has to make her underwear out of flour sacks. After watching their neighbors moved to Oregon in hopes for a better life, Leah's father realizes that they are going to have to sell everything, including the animals, truck and tractor. Leah realizes without the tractor, her family will have to give up the farm. Leah decided she has to sell her pony to Mr. B, the grocery store owner who thinks it's the finest pony in the country. She uses the dollar she received from selling her pony to bid on the tractor for her family. This selfless act encourages others to purchase the rest of the items for a small cost and give all of the things back to the family. Leah goes into the barn later to find that Mr. B returned her pony with a note that read, "This is the finest pony in the country. But he's just a little too small for me and a little bit too bog for my grandson. He fits you much better."

This book can be used in the classroom as a way to show students that doing something good for others simply out of the goodness of your heart can sometimes cause good things to happen to them. You could have your students do a selfless act and then write about and then discuss how it made the other person or themselves feel. If they got a good feeling from doing the act, you can then ask them to write a list of other simple things they could do and encourage them to carry out these things. To use technology you could have your students use the Inspiration program to make a map of the literary elements in this book.