Book info

• Title Black Beauty
• Author Anna Sewell
• Year 1877
• Genre Childrens

As a young horse, Black Beauty is well-loved and happy. But when his owner is forced to sell him, his life changes drastically. He has many new owners—some of them cruel and some of them kind. All he needs is someone to love him again... Whether pulling an elegant carriage or a ramshackle cab, Black Beauty tries to live as best he can. This is his amazing story, told as only he could tell it.

Thoughts

I think I owned a copy of Black Beauty as a child, but I must never have read it. When I sat down to read this, I realised I don’t know anything about the story - except the concept of Black Beauty. I had thought it was going to be more like Skippy, you know, horse showing super-animal intelligence and saving the day. Aside from the occasional fast gallop, it wasn’t really like that.

I was glad this is a short book as I’ve never really been a fan of horses. I can see that this would appeal to kids, particularly those who have a passion for those four legged creatures, but for me, it was just a nice little tale from an unusual point of view. I didn’t really like the constant not-so-subtle messages to treat horses well, they detracted from the story and made it feel more like a public announcement.

However, I can equally see that this would be a great grounding for kids who are going to get a horse, or get involved with the equine industry. Treat horses nice, kids, they have feelings too.

Some of the stories were quite interesting, and I was intrigued to see how many different owners Black Beauty had, and all the different types of occupation awaited a horse back then. After the depressing end to the previous book I read, I was also glad to see a relatively happy ending.

Rating: 3 / 5