Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

Reviewed by Sarah
librivox recording avaliable here
Start Date: Um, a week or so ago
Finish Date: today
Star rating: 8 stars! ********
Movie Rating: G. Its Black Beauty.

When I was little, Black Beauty was one of my very favorite books. We had a rather old copy with a horse-head pattern on the covers instead of a title which I read several times and was starting to look rather well-loved if I remember right--I think it's on the shelf in Breanna's room with the other books I didn't bring with me to college. (Speaking of books I brought with me to college [well, sort of], I now have so many books that they fill the whole shelf above my bed and the whole shelf above my desk with a bit of breathing room. That is seven and a half feet of book-filled shelf. This does not include the books that I'm keeping in the studio, nor the books that I'm borrowing, and of course not the books I left home. And this really has nothing to do with anything, so I shall stop talking about it.)

The Librivox reading I listened to was extremely well done, I really wish that Cori had done more solos so I could follow her readings around as I have Karen Savage's.

It was interesting coming back to this book this many years later, because of course I saw it much differently. I do remember it being somewhat "preachy" in some ways, but really, it is in many ways a very "preachy" book. But since I basically agree with everything that was being preached, it was rather less annoying than it might have been.