11th Book (Black Beauty)

Name                    : Roro Wulandari

NPM                      : 16611074

Tittle of reading materials: Black Beauty

Screenshot of reading cover :                                                                  

Types of Reading: Book

This novel is about a story of Black Beauty, a horse 19th-century England. It started with Beauty’s description of his life as a colt (young horse) in the home of a kind master named Farmer Grey. Beauty enjoys his life in the meadow and receives lectures from his mother, Duchess, about the importance of being kind and  gentle and never biting or kicking.

When he is two years old, Beauty saw a tragic death of one of horse riders in a fall from his horse when he witnesses a hunting party. The horse also injured, and this experience frightens him.

When Beauty turns four, farmer Grey train him to carry riders on his back and pull carriages. Beauty is sold to Squire Gordon at Birtwick Hall after being sent to a neighbor pasture near the train station to get used to the sounds of the road. Here is where he got his name, other than a white star on his forehead and a white hoof, his coat is shiny black.

At Birtwick, Beauty meets other horses and they became friends – Merrylegs, Ginger, and Sir Oliver. Squire Gordon and his coachman, John are kind men who believed in treating horses well. Beauty is happy to work with them until the Gordons must move to a warmer climate for Mrs.Gordon’s health.

Beauty is sold to a number of different homes, from Earlshall Park, a fashionable home where his mistress, Lady Anne, works her horse hard, to  a stable that rents out carriages and finally to a London cab driver named Jerry Barker, the first kind master he has after the Gordons. His other masters and stable managers overwork him, neglect his care and hygiene and even steal from his oats.

After Jerry become sick and need to leave the cab business, he sold Beauty to a corn dealer and then to another cab driver who is lazy and treat his horses unkindly. When Beauty collapse from overwork, he sold him at auction to a kind farmer who nurses him back to health before selling him to the Blome fields who were neighbors of the Gordons. Under the care of their groom who had once been a stable lad at Birtwick, Beauty lives out the remainder of his days in kind and loving home.

This story is very touching. We could imagine that horses also have feeling like human, so we should treat them well. if we treat them well, the horses will be kind to us too. This also happen to other animals, so don’t ever hurt animals. We should be kind to animals.