Black Beauty - Softcover

Anna Sewell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 048629272X ISBN 13: 9780486292724

Publisher: Dover Publications, 1996

Synopsis

One of the most celebrated and enduringly popular animal stories, Black Beauty was originally written as an appeal for the humane treatment of horses. This suspenseful and deeply moving account of a horse's experiences at the hands of many owners is retold here in an excellently illustrated coloring book version of the classic tale.
Artist John Green provides 35 realistic, ready-to-color scenes that depict Black Beauty's life — from his carefree days as a young colt through bleak and arduous experiences with a series of insensitive and often cruel handlers.
The specially abridged new text, set in large, easy-to-read type, relates a story that not only reveals many social problems of the late nineteenth-century but will tug at the heartstrings of animal lovers of all ages.

About this title

Review:

"A horse is a horse of course unless of course the horse is Black Beauty. Animal-loving children have been devoted to Black Beauty throughout this century, and no doubt will continue through the next. Although Anna Sewell's classic paints a clear picture of turn-of-the-century London, its message is universal and timeless: animals will serve humans well if they are treated with consideration and kindness.

Black Beauty tells the story of the horse's own long and varied life, from a well-born colt in a pleasant meadow to an elegant carriage horse for a gentleman to a painfully overworked cab horse. Throughout, Sewell rails--in a gentle, 19th-century way--against animal maltreatment. Young readers will follow Black Beauty's fortunes, good and bad, with gentle masters as well as cruel. Children can easily make the leap from horse-human relationships to human-human relationships, and begin to understand how their own consideration of others may be a benefit to all. (Ages 9 to 12)"

From the Publisher:

Black Beauty's tale, as told by himself, is the fascinating story of the life of a horse a hundred years ago, when horseswere a part of everyone's life.

Although his colthood and early life were happy, Black Beauty tastes the bitterness of cruel grooms and indifferent masters as he passes from hand to hand, progressing from the country to London and back again.

This, the most famous horse story ever written, is a must on everyone's reading list.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 048629272X
• ISBN 13: 9780486292724
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 48
• Illustrator: John Green