It's probably a well-known fact that despite me being the animal lover I am, I simply do not vibe with equines (horses and ponies specifically). They're just too big (in the case of horses at least) and skittish for my taste. They're definitely allowed to exist, just not in a close radius to me personally as I'd rather keep my distance.
So obviously I haven't read that many horse books. I think I read a few from the library at age 6 but other than that my interest has been peaked much more by canine, feline and cervine-centric xenofictions. But that isn't to say I'm not willing to give Black Beauty a chance; it's a classic after all and maybe I'll end up liking it like other xenofiction classics like Bambi: A Life in the Woods or Call of the Wild. Spoilers ahead, as well as mentions of animal abuse.
We follow a black horse known as Black Beauty throughout his life, where he gets sold and resold many times and meets many different owners who treat him with various degrees of kindness.
I definitely think this is a pretty decent book, but it just didn't keep me engaged all that much. Not saying I wanted to put it down, it just didn't hold my attention as much as I wanted it to. And, no, I don't think this is because of the subject matter (horses), but rather the author's writing voice that just wasn't for me.
The characters we came across usually don't leave that much of an impact except for our main character and Ginger. Which I guess was the point, but we come across many others in a rather short time because BB gets resold so many times to different owners it's kind of hard to keep track of who is who.
My main problem with the book, however, is how it treats the reader. The purpose of this book is clear: raising awareness of the mistreatment of horses with things such as tail docking, bearing reins, overworking the animals and blinkers. And the concept of this in and of itself isn't bad: it's good to raise awareness for animal mistreatment through literature (for example, how badly Buck and the sled dogs were treated in Call of the Wild by some of his masters).
But with how it was handled, it breaks one of the most basic writing rules: show, don't tell, and don't treat your audience like they're dumb. We literally get dialogue where the horses spell out directly how much they dislike these things and how it affects them, rather than letting the reader figure it out through the scenes described alone.
It feels like the book is talking down to the audience. Yes, I already gathered by how the book described Black Beauty's and Ginger's experiences with (for example) the bearing reins that they weren't doing the horses any good and that it made them feel miserable. We don't need it spelled out for us. I know that the book is nowadays classified as "children's literature", but this wasn't Sewell's intention when writing it, so there's no reason for her to talk down to the readers like this.
Other than that it's a solid book that does a good job addressing the bad treatment of horses quite a long time ago. Since I have no horse knowledge I don't know if these things are still done today (except blinkers, I've seen a few horses wearing those in my lifetime), but either way this book does do a good job of addressing it. It's just how it's handled and the author's writing voice I couldn't get into.
Rating: 3.5/5
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