Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse (Illustrated Junior Library)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0448058073 ISBN 13: 9780448058078

Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap, 1945

A horse of nineteenth century England tells his life story from his early home through many masters and experiences, both good and bad.

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.