Black Beauty Eyewitness Classics

One of my friends love horses, as well as reading "Black Beauty."

A

My daughter and I have been reading (and re-reading!) the DK Classics (of which "Black Beauty" is part of) for several years, since she was 5. These books are very colorful, with lots of illustrations and photos of genuine artifacts, maps, and people from the era in which the story is set. Side panel text gives background information about the author, pictures and story. These "additions" (which do not detract from, but only enhance the story) help the young reader (and the adult too!) put the story into context. It is like getting both a classic and a pictorial history book rolled into one! The text is easy to read. My daughter is now 9, and reading the books on her own. Not only has she developed an appreciation for classic literature, but for history as well. These are great books for parents to read with their children. I highly recommend them!

This is an excellent series and brilliant introduction to some of the classics of literature in an appealing and informative format. The stories are abridged but aim to be as faithful as they can to the original source retaining many of the classic lines in their entirety. As a private tutor I always recommend these books to parents wishing to broaden their children's reading in preparation for things like grammar school entrance exams. I first found these at my local library about fifteen years ago and ended up borrowing every one I could lay my hands on as my children loved them so much. I first read Black Beauty as a child but what's great about this particular series is that they put the stories into an historical context. I didn't realise how ground-breaking this book at the time that it was written. It was actually the first book to have an animal as the storyteller. By doing this, the writer, Anna Sewell very cleverly makes the reader see life from the animal's perspective and in turn makes us empathise fully with their predicament. Her book was influential enough to actually change the law regarding the treatment of animals and lead to it being sold by the RSPCA.

This book is very nice because we can see with this storie some aspects of life during this period, about horses but also about menThe drawings are beautiful