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Walter Farley starting writing The Black Stallion while he was in high school and finally published it in 1941. The book proved to be so popular that it became the first book in a multi-volume series. It is a wonderful story, even if horses are not your obsession. Alec Ramsay is sailing back to America after a visit to his missionary uncle in Australia when he is shipwrecked. He manages to survive by swimming to a small island clinging to the mane of a magnificent but wild black Arabian stallion that was also onboard Alec’s ship. On the small island, Alec finds food for the horse and himself and forms an unusual bond between the pair, which is the basis of the rest of the book and all the other books in the series. One thing to know about the stallion, whom Alec has named The Black- he is really, really fast.
The second book in the series is The Black Stallion Returns, which has a double meaning – “Returns” stands for the usual title of a sequel but also for a return to the horse’s native land. Alec and The Black are back in New York, just outside New York City and well-established. However, the Arabian sheikh, who is the true owner of the stallion, comes to the US to claim his horse. Alec gets to go back to Arabia with the sheikh, where there are plenty of adventures and dangers in the plains and mountains of The Black’s desert home – and lots of fast riding like the wind!
Both The Black Stallion and The Black Stallion Returns are written at the middle to high school level. However, Walter Farley wanted younger readers to be able to get an appreciation for his story, so he adapted The Black Stallion into a Random House Beginner’s Book, part of the “I Can Read All By Myself” series. Having the original author do the adaptation and abridgement is fairly unusual and works well. Hopefully early readers will be led at an older age to the full version of this terrific story.