A captivating retelling of Anna Sewell's classic novel beautifully illustrated by Alan Marks, perfect for encouraging independent reading. This title is part of Series Two of the Usborne Young Reading Programme, specially written for readers growing in confidence. The audio CD includes a dramatic listen-along recording with music and sound effects, followed by a read-along version with prompts for page turns.
This book features in the following series: Usborne Young Reading, Young Reading Cd Packs .
There are 64 pages in this book. This book was published in 2008 by Usborne Publishing Ltd .
Alan Marks is widely published and has illustrated many books. He is also a 'Smarties Prize' prize winner. Anna Sewell (1820-78) was a British novelist. Black Beauty was her only published work.
This book contains the following story:
Black Beauty
When he comes of age, the horse Black Beauty is sold to a grand house to be a carriage horse. The groom, Joe, is kind but his masters are cruel. Every day Beauty and his fellow horse, Ginger, are shackled to the carriage with a tight bearing rein to keep their heads held high, and the two horses are whipped and generally mistreated. When Ginger misbehaves she is taken away. When Beauty smashes his knee he is sold to a London cabby. Pulling a cab through all the weather is hard work but Jerry is kind to Beauty and he is happy. Then Jerry is offered a job as groom by a customer and has to sell Beauty. His next master is harsh and cruel. But then Black Beauty is rescued by a horse doctor and at the doctor’s stables he discovers that the groom is none other than Joe. Beauty lives out the rest of his life in the doctor’s fields, happy and cared for.
This book is in the following series:
Usborne Young Reading
The Usborne Reading Programme is a collection of over 300 reading books, graded in seven levels and covering a wide range of subjects, both fiction and non-fiction. First Reading covers the first four levels, and Young Reading the next three.Series 1: These titles are for children who have just started reading on their own. They are 48 pages long and typically contain several short stories or one longer story divided into chapters. They use fairly short, simple sentences and everyday vocabulary.Series 2: These titles are for children who are reading more confidently. They are 64 pages long and use varied sentence lengths, more complex sentence structure and more challenging vocabulary.Series 3: These titles are for fully confident readers who still need to gain the stamina needed for standard length books. They use advanced sentence structure and vocabulary and have more complex plots with subplots.
Young Reading Cd Packs
The Young Reading series is developed with reading expert Alison Kelly from Roehampton University to help young readers grow in confidence and ability.
This book features the following characters:
Ginger
Ginger is the chestnut horse that becomes friendly with Black Beauty when they are both carriage horses at Birtwick Park. She has a rough life and is consequently pretty sassy. The two friends go separate ways but meet again as broken-down cab horses in London.
Jimmy Barker
This book features the character Jimmy Barker.
Joe Green
This book features the character Joe Green.
Black Beauty
Black Beauty is a handsome black horse who narrates his story in the novel of the same name. He begins his career as a carriage horse for wealthy people but after a fall he is sacked and made to do much harder work. Beauty always tries his best despite the difficult circumstances he finds himself in.
