book review · reading

Summer Series: The Black Stallion Series Re-Read

Amanda

I’ve wanted to do this for a while now, and if anyone would like to join in and make it a blog hop, I’d be delighted.

In short, on Fridays this summer, I’ll be re-reading the books in Walter Farley’s Black Stallion series. I’ll try to match up what I read with my childhood memories, point out absurdities, revel in nostalgia, and raise some bigger picture questions.

So here’s the list of the series according to Wikipedia:

  1. The Black Stallion (1941)
  2. The Black Stallion Returns (1945)
  3. Son of the Black Stallion (1947)
  4. The Island Stallion (1948)
  5. The Black Stallion and Satan (1949)
  6. The Blood Bay Colt (1951)
  7. The Island Stallion’s Fury (1951)
  8. The Black Stallion’s Filly (1952)
  9. The Black Stallion Revolts (1953)
  10. The Black Stallion’s Sulky Colt (1954)
  11. The Island Stallion Races (1955)
  12. The Black Stallion’s Courage (1956)
  13. The Black Stallion Mystery (1957)
  14. The Horse Tamer (1958)
  15. The Black Stallion and Flame (1960)
  16. Man o’ War (1962)
  17. The Black Stallion Challenged (1964)
  18. The Black Stallion’s Ghost (1969)
  19. The Black Stallion and the Girl (1971)
  20. The Black Stallion Legend (1983)

They span 42 years of publishing; Walter Farley wrote the first book while still in high school, which explains a lot. There are some real highs (no joke, I still get choked up thinking about the end of The Black Stallion and Satan) and oh boy, are there some lows that I bet we’ve all repressed together. I’ll get to them all. Obviously, this will take me past the summer and into the fall – I’ll decide in September or so whether I want to keep going or save the second half of them for next summer.

Next week, I start with The Black Stallion itself, the OG. I started reading it earlier this week and my most pressing question so far is what exactly does it mean when a horse whistles? Can someone help me puzzle this out? It’s clearly not a high pitched screaming whinny, because the Black also screams CONSTANTLY. But he announces every.single.thing. he does with a whistle and it’s making me crazy.

8 thoughts on “Summer Series: The Black Stallion Series Re-Read”

  2. My husband recently teased me about still owning some of these. I'm gonna have to check my collection. Did you ever watch the tv show? I used to catch it before school when I was a kid.

    Like

    Reply

  4. I never did watch the tv show – I might take it on as an additional summer project. My gut tells me it will be bad. Do you think it will hold up?

    Like

    Reply

  6. Oh man, I haven't re-read these since I was a teenager! I have a lot of them, but they aren't in the best shape – not sure they could handle a re-read! I think as a kid I love the Island Stallion a lot.

    I also used to “breeze” my appy/welsh pony up and down the cornfields…lol!

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment