Here’s another classic from my archive — a fifth grade book report on Black Beauty. I thought it’d be fun to take another look at this, given I just re-read it. Or, given my memory, read it for the first time. Mouseover the links to see my present-day commentary.
Black Beauty is a auto-biography of a male horse. The horse’s name is Black Beauty. The story tells about him from his breaking in to his home of the Earl of W—.One chapter tells about Reuben Smith, Beauty’s coachman at Earlshall. As the story explains Smith had one great fault: the love of drink (liquor). Reuben went a big party at a bar. He got so drunk that when they were going home he was wildly thrashing at Beauty. Black Beauty was forced to run across a rocky road. Along the way, one of Black beauty’s shoes came off and he suffered terrible pain. At a point Beauty was forced to go no more. The sudden jerk hurled Smith to a patch of grass. He made one effort to get up and then let out a heavy groan.At another chapter, By sheer coincidence, Beauty met Ginger, an old friend, on the street while pulling a cab. Ginger had changed a lot.To make a long story short she was very old and torn. She said that she wished she were dead to end her misery. At the end of the chapter Black Beauty sees a horse being carried off into the horizon. It looked like Ginger. He hoped it was so that her troubles may be over.
Reading this book gave me a total different view of horses as I see them today. I suggest this book to anyone who owns a horse to help him/her understand the horse better.
