Black Beauty
(Ages 9-12, Gr. 4-7) An animal rights classic that's also an engaging read, BLACK BEAUTY follows the life of an ebony horse from birth to old age, and from pasture to the cobblestone streets of 19th century England This morality tale and animal "autobiography" gives a sweet and kind horse a voice that's relatable yet unsentimental.. Black Beauty's life begins on the grounds of an aristocratic English family. The young horse learns early lessons from his mother like how not to bite or kick even in play before circumstances force his sale to a new master; it's the first of several such sales/moves for the horse. As his life intersects with different human owners, caretakers, and neighbors, Black Beauty experiences different kinds of care and abuse, and he observes the differing attitudes of humans toward horses. Peppered throughout the novel are the moral lessons that the author, Anna Sewell who is the author, wants to impart to her readers: that truly good humans are kind to all of God's creatures, that parents should teach their children to be kind to animals, and perhaps most important, that even though they can't speak, horses can feel so that makes this fiction/fake. Anna Sewell was a devout Quaker, and that is apparent in her pacifist point of view, and in the book's emphasis on the value of hard work without complaint. strong text author: a person who wrote the book
Stats for nerds
6recommend
10mentions
10people
2008–2025years
60% recommend40% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I've always thought it seemed early, but in my first grade class we read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe aloud as a group.
I don't really remember us having much trouble. I was hooked, and I read the whole series by third grade. I had trouble finding a couple of them, which held me up.
I got into many other books those years. My Friend Flicka, Black Beauty. The Hobbit. White Fang, Hatchet. The Forest Runners. Where the Red Fern Grows.
Still some of my favorites on that list. They really shaped my life, actually.
- This reminds me of the year I really got into reading (5th - 6th grade), and I remember reading: Alice in Wonderland, Little Women, Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar, Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, Julie of the Wolves, the Babysitter's Club, The Giver, Holes, and Captain Underpants. I honestly could go on and on.
These are all wildly different books and I loved them all! At that age, I had no idea what I even wanted from literature. I just asked the Children's Librarian for books and she decided for me. Almost all of these books were plain old good stories.
It took me years to figure out what my reading preferences were. And as I got older, my fiction choices dramatically reduced in breadth. I kind of miss the lack of discernment I had when I was a reader of exclusively Children's Lit.
Now, it's really hard for me to read anything that's not the very specific genre of Psychological Thriller or woman-authored LitFic that I prefer.
I miss just receiving a stack of books and loving whatever I got. That there is the real magic of Children's lit.
- Just add a few more that are popular
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Henry David Thoreau
- Rudyard Kipling (jungle book)
- Anna Sewell (black beauty) - Walt Whitman (leaves of grass)
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Alexander Dumas (Count of Monte Cristo, musketeers)
- Tocqueville (democracy in America)
- Without casting aspersions on the fine authorship of The Life of a Bear:
* Black Beauty is a phenomenally well-written book, with fair comparisons to Bronte, Hardy and Dickens; and is certainly not viewed as a "children's book"
* written about horses at a time when horses were the world's most owned animal;
* and also at a bleak moment in the Industrial Revolution when the workhouse, child labor, and workplace hazards were at a local maximum.
So a fair mix of good timing and subject matter, combined with an excellent execution.
Anyway tldr everyone should re-read Black Beauty.
- How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler - I come back to this book constantly and I absolutely love it. Highly recommended. 5/5.
Deep Work by Cal Newport - Could be summed up in a blog post. 3/5 (for the message; lower otherwise - maybe 2-2.5/5)
Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount - Could be summed up in a blog post, but I think he makes a point on cold calling - if you need to do it, suck it up and do it. And that about sums it up. 2.5/5 (message is decent and he does offer some tips)
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke - Liked it, but unsure that I'll continue. 3.5/5.
White Fang by Jack London - Enjoyable and descriptive. Had to power through, though. 3.5/5
Treasure Island by RLS - Absolutely loved it. Now I need to power through the 800ish episodes of One Piece. 4/5
King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green - The story moves pretty fast. 4/5
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford - Khan as a historical figure fascinates me and I enjoyed this book. Don't know if it's just me, but Weatherford does seem to handwave Mongol atrocities. 4/5
Genghis Khan and the Quest for God by Jack Weatherford - Again, enjoyable. 3.5/5
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett - Charming and enjoyable story. 4/5
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell - Pretty sure this is the first book I ever read that's written from an animal's POV. I liked it. 4/5
The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson (Penguin Classic) - I really liked it. Helped me understand a bit more about Norse mythology. 4.5/5
Rejection Proof by Jia Jiang - I read this earlier in the year; it's about a guy who asked people ridiculous things in an effort to see if they'd say yes or no. I believe the thesis boils down to "Don't be afraid to ask; people say yes more often than you think." Was an enjoyable read. 4/5
My Antonia by Willa Cather (Oxford World Classic) - Really good read and not that long of a book. 4.5/5.
Apollo 8 by Jeffrey Kluger - As the title implies, it's about the Apollo 8 mission. Same guy who wrote the biography on Neil Armstrong. 3/5.
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling - Charming short stories that Kipling told his daughter until she died. 3.5/5
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain - Was assigned this in high school but didn't read it then. Read it now. I missed out; it's a good book, but I think it's relatively boring until Tom starts going out with Huck a bit more. 3.5/5
The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame - Best book I've ever read on friendship and its importance. 4.5/5
Only surprises for me were Apollo 8, which I didn't like as much as I liked the Neil Armstrong biography; Tom Sawyer, in that I liked it; and that Deep Work and Fanatical Prospecting seemed a lot more bloated than they should've been. Besides that, I'm happy I didn't read any books that I didn't like, but I suppose I didn't take many risks either.
- That's a very sweet idea. I think along with the musings of his growing up connect it with your life and your stories.
Have you read 'Black Beauty'? I would want my son/daughter to read something similar while he/she is growing up. To make it a personal thing, it could be stories from my life itself.
