Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
At the risk of sounding misanthropic, I have to admit that I’ve always shared a deeper affinity with animals than with humans. As a child, my ideal summer would be spent down the local riding stables, mucking out stalls, grooming horses and going for a hack in the surrounding countryside. My reading appetites echoed my interests, with and being firm favourites. Then came Looking back, I think seven years old was possibly a bit young to tackle the content of this novel, which deals more with cruelty and war than happy trotting ponies, but the story mesmerised me. Immediately after finishing it, I would start theexperiences. Suffice to say this caught the teacher’s attention as an unusual theme for a child and my poem received top marks. That’s the first time I can remember feeling that my words might have some power.
