What a ride. No child can fail to laugh and cry in equal measure as they jump on for the ride of a lifetime with Black Beauty. His unbreakable spirit, strong will and determination to survive in spite of all that’s thrown at him is not to be missed. With an Introduction by bestselling novelist, Meg Rosoff, who discovered the novel at the age of 11 deep in the basement of the family home. She remembers with warmth Black Beauty’s dignified voice shining through on every page. It’s book that will satisfy a child’s hunger for horse books for he or she will want to read it over and over again until as meg says, she could ‘recite whole scenes’. This terrific pocket size Puffin Classics edition there’s lots of additional material at the end of the book including an author profile, a guide to who’s who in Black Beauty plus many related activities to do beyond the book.
English novelist Anna Sewell published her book Black Beauty in 1877. The novel is written in the first person by the eponymous horse Black Beauty as an autobiographical biography, starting with his carefree days as a foal on an English farm with his mother, through his challenging time pulling taxis in London, and ending with his content retirement in the country. He encounters several challenges along the journey and tells many tales of brutality and generosity. Each brief chapter tells an event in Black Beauty's life that has a lesson or moral that is often connected to treating horses with love, sympathy, and understanding. Sewell's in-depth observations and exhaustive descriptions of horse behavior give the book a lot of realism.
Anna Sewell (1820-78) was born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. Black Beauty, her only book, was completed and published in 1877, just a few months before she died, so she did not live to know of the book's huge success. Apart from being a good story, Black Beauty was instrumental in changing people's attitudes towards horses, and domestic animals in general.
