Black Beauty

Black Beauty. Anna Sewell. 1877. 245 pages.

The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it. Some shady trees leaned over it, and rushes and water-lilies grew at the deep end. Over the hedge on one side we looked into a plowed field, and on the other we looked over a gate at our master's house, which stood by the roadside; at the top of the meadow was a grove of fir trees, and at the bottom a running brook overhung by a steep bank.

Black Beauty is such a GREAT book. I really LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it. Which surprises me, I must admit since I generally don't like animal stories, and I'm even more reluctant to read horse books than dog books. But. I loved it. There was something timeless and wonderful about it. I can see why it became a classic, I hope it remains a beloved classic. 

Black Beauty is a great narrator, a great character. I really came to care for this horse right from the start. I had a feeling that life wouldn't always be so easy and gentle for him. I knew that they'd be dark days and nights ahead. And that proved true. As he is sold from one owner to another to another to another to another and so on. But he's so very, very, very good and understanding and wise. There were so many times he proved himself noble and worthy. And Black Beauty wasn't the only character I loved. I loved so many of the human characters too! John Manly, for example, comes to mind, as does James Howard, Joe Green, Jerry Barker, Farmer Grey, Farmer Thoroughgood, etc. Ginger's story is touching, as well, Ginger being one of many horses Black Beauty befriends.

Black Beauty also had a LOT to say about society, about virtues and vices. It had a LOT to say in regards to how animals should be treated--with respect, kindness, understanding, with dignity. It had a LOT to say about how humans should treat one another too. I was surprised at how deep this book was, how wise.

My favorite quotes:

“There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham.”

“Only ignorance! only ignorance! how can you talk about only ignorance? Don't you know that it is the worst thing in the world, next to wickedness? -- and which does the most mischief heaven only knows. If people can say, `Oh! I did not know, I did not mean any harm,' they think it is all right.”

“My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.”

 “If a thing is right it can be done, and if it is wrong it can be done without; and a good man will find a way.”

“We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.” 

Read Black Beauty

    •    If you want to read one of the best children's books ever
    •    If you're a fan of animal stories, horse stories,
    •    If you enjoy historical fiction
    •    If you enjoy classics


© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

The Princess and Curdie (MG)

The Princess and Curdie. George MacDonald. 1883. 272 pages.

Curdie was the son of Peter the miner. He lived with his father and mother in a cottage built on a mountain, and he worked with his father inside the mountain.

The Princess and Curdie is the sequel to George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin. It is set several years after the events of the first book. And those are years that Curdie has spent away from Princess Irene--the young princess and the great-great-great-great-grandmother Irene. He hasn't completely forgotten the Princess and her father, the King. But he's a growing boy, a busy boy, and well, he needs a bit of a wake up call perhaps.

He has his own encounter with the old woman--the grandmother Irene. And it changes EVERYTHING. For she gives him a very unique gift--with the touch of his hand, he can know what a man or woman truly is: if they are truly human, or if there is a "beast" inside. If it sounds confusing, well, it is in a way. It definitely requires you to suspend your disbelief, to fully engage in this FANTASY world. This one excerpt will do a better job than I ever could in describing what this book is like, and what to expect from this adventure-fantasy-quest.

'Curdie,' she said in answer to his eyes, 'you have stood more than one trial already, and have stood them well: now I am going to put you to a harder. Do you think you are prepared for it?'
'How can I tell, ma'am,' he returned, 'seeing I do not know what it is, or what preparation it needs? Judge me yourself, ma'am.'
'It needs only trust and obedience,' answered the lady.
'I dare not say anything, ma'am. If you think me fit, command me.'
'It will hurt you terribly, Curdie, but that will be all; no real hurt but much good will come to you from it.'
Curdie made no answer but stood gazing with parted lips in the lady's face.
'Go and thrust both your hands into that fire,' she said quickly, almost hurriedly.
Curdie dared not stop to think. It was much too terrible to think about. He rushed to the fire, and thrust both of his hands right into the middle of the heap of flaming roses, and his arms halfway up to the elbows. And it did hurt! But he did not draw them back. He held the pain as if it were a thing that would kill him if he let it go—as indeed it would have done. He was in terrible fear lest it should conquer him.
But when it had risen to the pitch that he thought he could bear it no longer, it began to fall again, and went on growing less and less until by contrast with its former severity it had become rather pleasant. At last it ceased altogether, and Curdie thought his hands must be burned to cinders if not ashes, for he did not feel them at all. The princess told him to take them out and look at them. He did so, and found that all that was gone of them was the rough, hard skin; they were white and smooth like the princess's.
'Come to me,' she said.
He obeyed and saw, to his surprise, that her face looked as if she had been weeping.
'Oh, Princess! What is the matter?' he cried. 'Did I make a noise and vex you?'
'No, Curdie, she answered; 'but it was very bad.'
'Did you feel it too then?'
'Of course I did. But now it is over, and all is well. Would you like to know why I made You put your hands in the fire?' Curdie looked at them again—then said:
'To take the marks of the work off them and make them fit for the king's court, I suppose.'
'No, Curdie,' answered the princess, shaking her head, for she was not pleased with the answer. 'It would be a poor way of making your hands fit for the king's court to take off them signs of his service. There is a far greater difference on them than that. Do you feel none?'
'No, ma'am.'
'You will, though, by and by, when the time comes. But perhaps even then you might not know what had been given you, therefore I will tell you. Have you ever heard what some philosophers say—that men were all animals once?'
'No, ma'am.'
'It is of no consequence. But there is another thing that is of the greatest consequence—this: that all men, if they do not take care, go down the hill to the animals' country; that many men are actually, all their lives, going to be beasts. People knew it once, but it is long since they forgot it.'
'I am not surprised to hear it, ma'am, when I think of some of our miners.'
'Ah! But you must beware, Curdie, how you say of this man or that man that he is travelling beastward. There are not nearly so many going that way as at first sight you might think. When you met your father on the hill tonight, you stood and spoke together on the same spot; and although one of you was going up and the other coming down, at a little distance no one could have told which was bound in the one direction and which in the other. Just so two people may be at the same spot in manners and behaviour, and yet one may be getting better and the other worse, which is just the greatest of all differences that could possibly exist between them.'
'But ma'am,' said Curdie, 'where is the good of knowing that there is such a difference, if you can never know where it is?'
'Now, Curdie, you must mind exactly what words I use, because although the right words cannot do exactly what I want them to do, the wrong words will certainly do what I do not want them to do. I did not say you can never know. When there is a necessity for your knowing, when you have to do important business with this or that man, there is always a way of knowing enough to keep you from any great blunder. And as you will have important business to do by and by, and that with people of whom you yet know nothing, it will be necessary that you should have some better means than usual of learning the nature of them.
'Now listen. Since it is always what they do, whether in their minds or their bodies, that makes men go down to be less than men, that is, beasts, the change always comes first in their hands—and first of all in the inside hands, to which the outside ones are but as the gloves. They do not know it of course; for a beast does not know that he is a beast, and the nearer a man gets to being a beast the less he knows it. Neither can their best friends, or their worst enemies indeed, see any difference in their hands, for they see only the living gloves of them. But there are not a few who feel a vague something repulsive in the hand of a man who is growing a beast.
'Now here is what the rose-fire has done for you: it has made your hands so knowing and wise, it has brought your real hands so near the outside of your flesh gloves, that you will henceforth be able to know at once the hand of a man who is growing into a beast; nay, more—you will at once feel the foot of the beast he is growing, just as if there were no glove made like a man's hand between you and it.
'Hence of course it follows that you will be able often, and with further education in zoology, will be able always to tell, not only when a man is growing a beast, but what beast he is growing to, for you will know the foot—what it is and what beast's it is. According, then, to your knowledge of that beast will be your knowledge of the man you have to do with. Only there is one beautiful and awful thing about it, that if any one gifted with this perception once uses it for his own ends, it is taken from him, and then, not knowing that it is gone, he is in a far worse condition than before, for he trusts to what he has not got.'
'How dreadful!' Said Curdie. 'I must mind what I am about.'
'Yes, indeed, Curdie.'
'But may not one sometimes make a mistake without being able to help it?'
'Yes. But so long as he is not after his own ends, he will never make a serious mistake.'
'I suppose you want me, ma'am, to warn every one whose hand tells me that he is growing a beast—because, as you say, he does not know it himself.'
The princess smiled.
'Much good that would do, Curdie! I don't say there are no cases in which it would be of use, but they are very rare and peculiar cases, and if such come you will know them. To such a person there is in general no insult like the truth. He cannot endure it, not because he is growing a beast, but because he is ceasing to be a man. It is the dying man in him that it makes uncomfortable, and he trots, or creeps, or swims, or flutters out of its way—calls it a foolish feeling, a whim, an old wives' fable, a bit of priests' humbug, an effete superstition, and so on.'
'And is there no hope for him? Can nothing be done? It's so awful to think of going down, down, down like that!'
'Even when it's with his own will?'
'That's what seems to me to make it worst of all,' said Curdie.
'You are right,' answered the princess, nodding her head; 'but there is this amount of excuse to make for all such, remember—that they do not know what or how horrid their coming fate is. Many a lady, so delicate and nice that she can bear nothing coarser than the finest linen to touch her body, if she had a mirror that could show her the animal she is growing to, as it lies waiting within the fair skin and the fine linen and the silk and the jewels, would receive a shock that might possibly wake her up.'
'Why then, ma'am, shouldn't she have it?'
The princess held her peace.
'Come here, Lina,' she said after a long pause.
From somewhere behind Curdie, crept forward the same hideous animal which had fawned at his feet at the door, and which, without his knowing it, had followed him every step up the dove tower. She ran to the princess, and lay down flat at her feet, looking up at her with an expression so pitiful that in Curdie's heart it overcame all the ludicrousness of her horrible mass of incongruities. She had a very short body, and very long legs made like an elephant's, so that in lying down she kneeled with both pairs. Her tail, which dragged on the floor behind her, was twice as long and quite as thick as her body. Her head was something between that of a polar bear and a snake. Her eyes were dark green, with a yellow light in them. Her under teeth came up like a fringe of icicles, only very white, outside of her upper lip. Her throat looked as if the hair had been plucked off. It showed a skin white and smooth.
'Give Curdie a paw, Lina,' said the princess.
The creature rose, and, lifting a long foreleg, held up a great doglike paw to Curdie. He took it gently. But what a shudder, as of terrified delight, ran through him, when, instead of the paw of a dog, such as it seemed to his eyes, he clasped in his great mining fist the soft, neat little hand of a child! He took it in both of his, and held it as if he could not let it go. The green eyes stared at him with their yellow light, and the mouth was turned up toward him with its constant half grin; but here was the child's hand! If he could but pull the child out of the beast! His eyes sought the princess. She was watching him with evident satisfaction.
'Ma'am, here is a child's hand!' said Curdie.
'Your gift does more for you than it promised. It is yet better to perceive a hidden good than a hidden evil.'

Curdie sets out on his mission/quest to visit the city of Gwyntystorm--where the King and Princess Irene live. He doesn't know exactly why he's going--what the desired outcome is. But he trust that he's been sent for a reason, for a higher purpose and that is more than enough for him.

I will warn you that Irene, the heroine from The Princess and the Goblin, does not appear until the novel is halfway over. This isn't her story, this isn't her adventure. The adventure belongs more to Curdie and Lina than anyone else. 

This is more fantasy than fairy tale. There is definitely a struggle between good and evil. But I definitely liked it. At times I even loved it.


Read The Princess and Curdie

• If you're a fan of George MacDonald
• If you enjoy children's classics
• If you enjoy children's fantasy
• If you enjoy C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien
• If you enjoy adventurous fantasy novels with quests; the ongoing struggle between good and evil

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Princess and the Goblin (MG/YA)

The Princess and the Goblin. George MacDonald. 1872. 259 pages.

There was once a little princess whose father was king over a great country full of mountains and valleys. His palace was built upon one of the mountains, and was very grand and beautiful. The princess, whose name was Irene, was born there, but she was sent soon after her birth, because her mother was not very strong, to be brought up by country people in a large house, half castle, half farmhouse, on the side of another mountain, about half-way between its base and its peak. 

I just LOVED The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald. I'm not sure if I could say I loved it more than A Light Princess, but, I'm not sure I could say I loved it less either!!! George MacDonald is just pleasing me these days! I would definitely recommend this one to just about everyone!

It isn't the easiest novel in the world to describe, but, I'll do my best to do it justice. Princess Irene is the heroine. She lives a very, very sheltered life. She hardly ever goes outside the safety of the castle, but, when she does she often stumbles across Curdie, a young boy with hero-potential. If the castle and/or the kingdom is at risk, if their peace is threatened, they are unaware of it. But Curdie stumbles into danger and unveils a plot. GOBLINS. Goblins set on revenge, goblins who want war, goblins who want to overthrow the kingdom and perhaps steal the princess.

Here's the introduction to goblins:

Now in these subterranean caverns lived a strange race of beings, called by some gnomes, by some kobolds, by some goblins. There was a legend current in the country that at one time they lived above ground, and were very like other people. But for some reason or other, concerning which there were different legendary theories, the king had laid what they thought too severe taxes upon them, or had required observances of them they did not like, or had begun to treat them with more severity, in some way or other, and impose stricter laws; and the consequence was that they had all disappeared from the face of the country. According to the legend, however, instead of going to some other country, they had all taken refuge in the subterranean caverns, whence they never came out but at night, and then seldom showed themselves in any numbers, and never to many people at once. It was only in the least frequented and most difficult parts of the mountains that they were said to gather even at night in the open air. Those who had caught sight of any of them said that they had greatly altered in the course of generations; and no wonder, seeing they lived away from the sun, in cold and wet and dark places. They were now, not ordinarily ugly, but either absolutely hideous, or ludicrously grotesque both in face and form. There was no invention, they said, of the most lawless imagination expressed by pen or pencil, that could surpass the extravagance of their appearance. But I suspect those who said so had mistaken some of their animal companions for the goblins themselves—of which more by and by. The goblins themselves were not so far removed from the human as such a description would imply. And as they grew misshapen in body they had grown in knowledge and cleverness, and now were able to do things no mortal could see the possibility of. But as they grew in cunning, they grew in mischief, and their great delight was in every way they could think of to annoy the people who lived in the open-air storey above them. They had enough of affection left for each other to preserve them from being absolutely cruel for cruelty's sake to those that came in their way; but still they so heartily cherished the ancestral grudge against those who occupied their former possessions and especially against the descendants of the king who had caused their expulsion, that they sought every opportunity of tormenting them in ways that were as odd as their inventors; and although dwarfed and misshapen, they had strength equal to their cunning. In the process of time they had got a king and a government of their own, whose chief business, beyond their own simple affairs, was to devise trouble for their neighbours. It will now be pretty evident why the little princess had never seen the sky at night. They were much too afraid of the goblins to let her out of the house then, even in company with ever so many attendants; and they had good reason, as we shall see by and by.

 The story is essentially told through two perspectives that of Curdie, who overhears the plotting and later stumbles into the goblins' realm or kingdom--where he is imprisoned underground; and that of Princess Irene who is a lonely child who likes to explore the castle. One day she discovers her great-great-great-great-great grandmother. An old woman named Irene. The two become good friends, great friends, but the truth of the matter is that NO ONE believes in the existence of this old woman, no one believes that Irene has found a woman living up high in one of the now-forgotten castle rooms. Irene visits her a time or two, Irene listens carefully to every word, every instruction. And Irene is happy to be a believer even if it means her nurse laughs at her for her overactive imagination, even if it means her father chuckles at his little girl's dreams, even if it means Curdie calls her a fool.

What makes this book so wonderful is the writing. My description of it may not do it justice...at all...it may not sound like it would be a good story, a charming and delightful story. But MacDonald is such a great writer, that it just works. His writing reminds me of E. Nesbit, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien. For example, this story is sprinkled--liberally--with poems and songs. And the book does have this adventuresome spirit to it. It's just a lively, delightful story. I think it's a must for those that enjoy fairy tales and fantasy stories.

Favorite quotes:

All mothers are nice and good more or less, but Mrs. Peterson was nice and good all more and no less. (99)

But that is the way fear serves us: it always sides with the thing we are afraid of. (112)

It is when people do wrong things willfully that they are the more likely to do them again. (120)

The right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear eyes and strong painless limbs. (129)

People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. (187)

Seeing is not believing--it is only seeing. (190)

"We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary."
"What is that, grandmother?"
"To understand other people."
"Yes, grandmother. I must be fair--for if I'm not fair to other people, I'm not worth being understood myself." (191)

 Read The Princess and the Goblin

• If you love fantasy
• If you love adventure
• If you love fairy tales
• If you love old-fashioned stories with lots of description and detail
• If you love good storytelling 

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

The Light Princess

The Light Princess. George MacDonald. 1864. 110 pages.

Once upon a time, so long ago that I have quite forgotten the date, there lived a king and queen who had no children. And the king said to himself, "All the queens of my acquaintance have children, some three, some seven, and some as many as twelve; and my queen has not one. I feel ill-used." So he made up his mind to be cross with his wife about it. But she bore it all like a good patient queen as she was. Then the king grew very cross indeed. But the queen pretended to take it all as a joke, and a very good one too.
"Why don't you have any daughters, at least?" said he. "I don't say sons; that might be too much to expect." 
"I am sure, dear king, I am very sorry," said the queen.
"So you ought to be," retorted the king; "you are not going to make a virtue of that, surely."
But he was not an ill-tempered king, and in any matter of less moment would have let the queen have her own way with all his heart. This, however, was an affair of state. The queen smiled. 
"You must have patience with a lady, you know, dear king," said she.
She was, indeed, a very nice queen, and heartily sorry that she could not oblige the king immediately. (1-2)

While this isn't technically my first completed read for A Literary Odyssey's Victorian Celebration, it is my first completed read by a Victorian author. George MacDonald's The Light Princess is a true must read. For anyone of any age who loves a good story. It reads like a fairy tale. It has all the elements that we've come to associate with fairy tales: a king and queen that struggle to have a child, the birth of a beautiful baby, a christening that does NOT go as planned, a "curse" upon an innocent baby, etc. And that's just the beginning.

This is the second time I've read this short novel. And I think it's a book that begs to be reread again and again because once in a lifetime could never be enough.

The Light Princess is such a DELIGHTFUL book. It seems obvious in a way to call it delightful and charming and oh-so-magical. But it's true. There are no other words that could do it justice. It's the story of what happens when this childless king and queen have a baby girl of their own. It's the story of what happens when one of the princesses (who is also a witch) is NOT invited to the christening.

The king tried to have patience, but he succeeded very badly. It was more than he deserved, therefore, when, at last, the queen gave him a daughter--as lovely a little princess as ever cried.
The day drew near when the infant must be christened. The king wrote all the invitations with his own hand. Of course somebody was forgotten.
Now it does not generally matter if somebody is forgotten, only you must mind who. Unfortunately, the king forgot without intending to forget; and so the chance fell upon the Princess Makemnoit, which was awkward. For the princess was the king's own sister; and he ought not to have forgotten her. But she had made herself so disagreeable to the old king, their father, that he had forgotten her in making his will; and so it was no wonder that her brother forgot her in writing his invitations. But poor relations don't do anything to keep you in mind of them. Why don't they? The king could not see into the garret she lived in, could he?
She was a sour, spiteful creature. The wrinkles of contempt crossed the wrinkles of peevishness, and made her face as full of wrinkles as a pat of butter. If ever a king could be justified in forgetting anybody, this king was justified in forgetting his sister, even at a christening. She looked very odd, too. Her forehead was as large as all the rest of her face, and projected over it like a precipice. When she was angry, her little eyes flashed blue. When she hated anybody, they shone yellow and green. What they looked like when she loved anybody, I do not know; for I never heard of her loving anybody but herself, and I do not think she could have managed that if she had not somehow got used to herself. But what made it highly imprudent in the king to forget her was--that she was awfully clever. In fact, she was a witch; and when she bewitched anybody, he very soon had enough of it; for she beat all the wicked fairies in wickedness, and all the clever ones in cleverness. (3-5)

Of course, the uninvited guest comes, and of course they bring an unwelcome gift. In this case, the princess-witch deprived the baby of gravity. So from the day of the christening on, she floated. The king and queen tried to find some positive aspects to it, but, really what could they do when their apologies failed? Just go on loving their daughter as she was with all their hearts.

But their daughter was different in another way too. She had no gravity in matters of the heart and mind too. She could not take anything seriously. Her reaction to life--to all of life--was laughter. Which is just as serious a curse as the other, in my opinion. For there was an emptiness in all her emotions, her actions.

The Light Princess is the story of what happens when she meets a prince. Will the young woman incapable of falling, be capable of falling in love?

I loved the young man who comes to the kingdom and befriends the princess. I love his conversations with the princess. And I do love seeing the big transformation at the end. It's quite magical.

I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this book!

Read The Light Princess

• If you love fairy tales, 
• If you love children's fantasy
• If you love good storytelling
• If you love 'light' romance
• If you love happy endings

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews