Free Printable for Bonny's Big Day by James Herriot

Bonny’s Big Day

by James Herriot, illustrated by Ruth Brown

James Herriot was a veterinarian who wrote books for adults and children alike. You have probably heard of All Creatures Great and Small. His stories, of course, involve animals. This story is a little slow moving for today’s high tech children, but try to find a time your child or class would be willing to listen. This is a horse story, after all, and most children like horses.

In Bonny’s Big Day, the vet visits a farmer who has two retired horses. One needs a little medical attention. The farmer doesn’t realize this pair of horses have become his pets. The vet points out that for the twelve years they have been retired, the farmer had climbed a big hill in every kind of weather on a daily basis to check on them and give them some oats or hay. The vet suggests the farmer, old John Skipton, take the horse that was feeling well to be in the Family Pet Class show (a contest). The farmer says that is a silly idea, and it sounds like he won’t enter the horse in the Darrowby Show.

However, the as the veterinarian is also the vet-in-charge at the Darrowby Show, he sees the farmer does enter Bonny. The farmer is dressed up for him (well, his socks do match this day, after all) and the horse is also beautifully dressed in the full regalia of an old-fashioned carthorse. Who do you think wins in the Family Pet Class?