As a personal example, I have always felt a strong love for animals and a desire to protect them from being harmed, which occasionally led to arguments with others over whether or not the life of an ant or a fly was important. Many children feel an innate empathetic connection to animals, but the society we live in often devalues the lives and welfare of our fellow creatures, particularly those used and exploited for food or work, like horses. As such, children and adults should read and learn about the book’s history and power. Though the novel was originally meant to be an instructional treatise on the proper treatment of horses, it is viewed today as a children’s book, and I believe that this is truly the book’s best usage.īlack Beauty‘s compassionate depiction of animals and intimate narration gives children a solid grounding in empathy for all creatures, humans, and animals alike. Anna Sewell’s fictional 1877 novel Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions, the Autobiography of a Horse was instrumental in bringing about specific changes for the benefit of carriage horses and altogether changing English and American attitudes towards animal welfare. While animal welfare and anti-cruelty laws are well known today, the idea of speaking out and legislating against the unjust treatment of animals was by no means accepted in the nineteenth century.
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