Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. It would be rare for a story that depends so thoroughly on establishing empathetic connection to succeed as a picture-book adaptation, and this one doesn’t, but the illustrations provide such a sumptuous visual feast that it is most assuredly worth perusing.Ī home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature. The faux marbled endpapers are a nice period touch, as is the information about Sewell included on the endpapers. Each double-page spread illuminates the setting of 19th-century England and gives the story an ambiance and luxuriousness that the spare text lacks. Brown’s superb illustrations, however, more than carry their weight. To be fair, it is hard to see how pathos-the essential strength of Sewell’s original-could be generated in the succinct, 32-page format. While Brown’s retelling retains Black Beauty as narrator and stays true to the main plot points of the original story, the emotional tug is missing, and it reads rather like a dispassionate summary. The impact of the original lies in Black Beauty’s heart-rending narration as he describes his life as a work animal, often suffering due to the neglect and, in some cases, deliberate cruelty of his various owners.

Sewell’s original Black Beauty, first published in 1877, tells the story of a carriage horse’s life from the horse’s point of view. The classic story retold in an abbreviated picture-book version.

Black beauty original book