You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
I remember reading this when I was in middle school. I remember loving it. I can't remember much else about it. There's a horse. There's a boy. I think at least part of it is set in an Arab country.
Read aloud to Ben. The writing was just okay; lots of short choppy sentences and often repetitive dialogue. I was also a little disturbed by how often Alec sneaks out in the night to do horse stuff without telling his parents, but I guess that's just children's lit from that era? Also I read that the author began this book while he was still in high school, so that accounts for some of my complaints. Ben loved it.
It's no surprise that this book has stood the test of time, no surprise at all. Even without the movie and its beautiful images of horse and boy on the desert island, this book stands out in ways that other teen mets horse books don't. The possible exception to this [b:My Friend Flicka|164542|My Friend Flicka (Flicka, #1)|Mary O'Hara|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1391620119s/164542.jpg|3022662] (Black Beauty is about a horse, not a boy and his horse). Perhaps this is because both books have the horse be a horse. In other words, the Black Stallion is always a stallion. He doesn't get magically gelded and then ungelded.
That seems part of his greatness in this series; for at no point does Farley ever condsend to his young readers. He presents the world where the rules don't magically change; Alex only finds a way to work with them or around them. Yes, perhaps the book is part wish fulfillment, but it is also a non-Gary Stu wish fullment.
There is such passion and love for horses in this series, but in a non-romantized way. A child could do far worse than starting this series.
The Black Stallion is a classic boy and horse story. It starts out in a shipwreck/survival scenerio and transitions to a return to normal life and a taming of the stallion. I wasn’t a huge fan of these parts of the novel but I really enjoyed the final section with the horse racing. Altogether, it’s a good, not great teen novel.
In about 5th grade I was completely obsessed with this series... I must have read 20 or so of them. One of these days I'll have to re-read them and see if they're as good as I remember, or if I loved them purely from a burst of horse-craziness.
A good book. It is not the best I have read, but it kept my attention.
How can you not love these books? Written by someone who grew up with horses, for boys and girls who love horses. This is the first in the Black Stallion series and tells the story of a young teenage boy, Alec Ramsay, who is shipwrecked on an island with a wild stallion, who he is able to tame and ride. I loved these books as a child and appreciate them even more now that I'm an adult!