Will James

The experiences of a mouse-colored horse from his birth in the wild, through his capture by humans and his work in the rodeo and on the range, to his eventual old age.

Smoky the Cowhorse

Stories about a working cowboy named Bill who drifts from Montana to Arizona.

The Drifting Cowboy

A young city man learns to become a cowboy.

Sand

Smoky the Cowhorse is a novel by Will James that was the winner of the 1927 Newbery Medal. The story details the life of a horse in the western United States from his birth to his eventual decline. It takes place after the 1910, during which the West dies away and automobiles are introduced. Smoky is born in the wild but is captured and trained by a cowboy named Clint. Clint is taken by Smoky's intelligence and spirit, and he uses him as his personal steed. Under his guidance, Smoky soon becomes known as the best cow horse around. However, Smoky is among a number of horses stolen by a horse thief. When Smoky refuses to allow the thief to ride him, being loyal only to Clint, he is beaten repeatedly in punishment. Developing an intense hatred for humans from this treatment, Smoky eventually attacks and kills the thief. When Smoky is eventually captured by local authorities, his now violent and aggressive demeanor prompts his use as a bucking bronco at a rodeo. Under the moniker of "The Cougar", he becomes the most famous rodeo attraction in the South West, and people come from miles away to attempt to ride him. Years of performing at the rodeo eventually take their toll on his body and spirit, and he is left a shell of his former self. As he is no longer of any use as a rodeo horse, he is renamed "Cloudy" and used as a riding horse, then later sold to an abusive man who starves him. During this time, Clint finally reunites with Smoky. While in town on business, Clint spots and recognizes the horse. After having Smoky's current owner arrested for his acts of cruelty, Clint reclaims him and takes him home with him. Although Clint initially despairs at the condition Smoky is in, his careful treatment of the horse begins to show results. In the end, Smoky has completely recovered his former health and personality. The novel has been adapted to the screen three times as Smoky, in 1933, 1946, and 1966. Will James himself appears in the 1933 film as a narrator. Will James expressed surprise at winning the Newbery Medal for Smoky the Cowhorse, since the book was published for adults. An illustrated edition of Smoky the Cowhorse was issued in 1928. James loosely based the book on his first horse, Smoky, who was born in the Huff's cabin, near Val Marie, Saskatchewan, where James learned wrangling and lived for three years before moving to the United States. In the 1982 film Tex, lead character Tex McCormick refers to Smoky the Cowhorse as his favorite book. Thomas Schelling said the most influential book he ever read was Smoky the Cowhorse. "He'd say it was the first time he understood empathy for other human beings". (wikipedia.org)

Smoky the Cow Horse

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Smoky, the Cow Horse" by Will James. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Smoky, the Cow Horse

“This book is the story of a church that has begun to experience the transformative change that will happen when you consciously choose to enter a partnership type of relationship with Jesus, and allow Him to use you beyond your wildest dreams.” So says Will James, senior pastor of the Paradise Valley Seventh-day Adventist Church in National City, California. In this book he outlines how members of the Paradise Valley Church are feeding, clothing, and educating Jesus in the form of some of His needy children who are refugees from many parts of the world. Besides providing food, shelter, clothing, English language classes, and a work training program for people who have fled religious and political persecution, helping many to obtain a college education and good jobs that take these people off of government assistance, church members have learned total dependence upon a God who provides for all of their needs at just the right time.

The Story of a Church That Did

The Joys of Partnering With God

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The old ones had grand and glorious machines. They inhabited glittering cities of light. They loved to fly (seemingly so dangerous to us) as documented in our first story: The Little Prince. They could fly across oceans. Their sailing vessels filled the skies They mapped the stars and sent men into space--but they went mad and destroyed themselves. We are their offspring. Faint traces of the old world can still be seen in our world, in ruins and refuse not yet been reclaimed by nature. We do not know what lies beyond our shores. Our seafaring vessels are not capable of traversing the globe. Over many generations our people have engaged in battles but nothing like the great wars of the past. We live a peaceful existence. We feel blessed. We share a common language with the old world, with our ancestors; even so, many of their words seem foreign to us and are difficult to decipher. The old ones were capable of great magic. They were able to record and transmit images of themselves across great distances. This art has now been lost. We do have transcripts of these talking pictures along with faded photographs, ragged books and other deteriorating volumes archived in makeshift libraries. Sadly the largest of these libraries recently burned. This is why we have decided to compile and distill from the existing archives a few stories that moved us. We are thinking of future generations, that there will be a record not just of sacred texts (stories of sky gods and virgin births), of poets and philosophers and of visionaries and prophets but we wish to produce (using the archives and literary techniques discovered in the books of the old ones) a glimpse into this ancient civilization before death and the whirlwind overtook them.ABOUT THE AUTHORSWill James is a poet and musician. After spending several years in Paris, France, he returned to the United States in late 2005.Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyon France in 1900. He disappeared in July 1944 while flying a reconnaissance mission over occupied France during World War II.

The LITTLE PRINCE and OTHER STORIES

While spending their summer vacation with Uncle Frank and Uncle Bill, two city children discover and begin to explore what seems to be an old gold mine shaft, but find that it is guarded by mountain lions.

Look-See with Uncle Bill

The words cow country bring to mind round-up wagons, saddle horses, ridgers, branding irons, and the wide open range -- a place where there's not a fence as far as you can see, nothing but bluegrass ripplin' in the sun. Will James delivers all of tha

Cow Country

First publishing in 1930 and accepted as Will James' autobiography, Lone Cowboy is regarded today as a fictionalized account of the author's life. James was a cowboy before he became an author and an artist. The illustrations and text revive scenes, peo

My Life Story

Lone Cowboy

First publishing in 1925, the seven stories collected here revolve around the adventures of a lanky cowboy named Bill, whose drifting takes him throughout the West as he lives the hard life of a working cowboy.

This collection of 16 cowboy stories includes some of James' best stories from his previous work along with 7 original stories, all accompanied by the author's lively illustrations.

Tales of the Cow Camps

Sun Up

Smoky Cowhorse, the Cowhorse

Will James introduces this delightful tale for adults and children alike. Young Billy was a born cowboy-unfortunately, his parents have other aspirations for him and send him off to be "edducated and turned into something else." But one day Billy takes hi

Big-Enough

ANNOTATION: Fourteen short stories capture the quirky and peculiar behavior of horses, both good and ornery. You'll meet buckers, tricksters, and trusted partners: Bearcat is not just a plain crazy hardheaded bucker...but a wise, coolheaded cross between a whirlwind and a ton of brick, Joker is full of old nick and plenty of snorts, and Little Eagle is the seeing eye for a blind cowboy. First published in 1940, Horses I've Known contains some of Will James' most acclaimed short stories.

Horses I've Known

Having gotten his first horse, Big-Enough, for his fourth birthday, Billy spends the next several years working hard to become a good, all-around cowboy on his father's ranch.

Young Cowboy

Anna Sewell

Ernest Thompson Seton

This composite book contains three wonderful pieces of work by famous writers - Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, Smoky the Cowhorse by Will James and The Pacing Mustang by Ernest Thompson Seton. Love to animals, to horses in particular, unites these stories. The first book became a world bestseller. It was purchased by more than 50 million readers. In Smoky the Cowhorse an old cowboy tells about hard life of a real cowboy horse in the wide expanse of the prairie. In The Pacing Mustang, the wild black Pacing Mustang couldn’t be caught by any cowboy. Only a greedy cook was able to cunningly entrap the fast horse. In the end, even the cook was left behind by the horse’s tremendous speed.

Books about Horses

Smoky the Cowhorse. The pacing mustang. Black Beauty

Describes the experiences of Smoky, the mouse-colored horse, from his birth on the range, his capture by humans, through his work in the rodeo and on the ranch, and his eventual old age.

Will James

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