Daily Archives for: May 22nd, 2017

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell (1877)

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Anna Sewell (1820 – 1878) published only one book — Black Beauty — but what a book it was. At age 14, she fell while walking home from school and broke both of her ankles. The treatment was shoddy, and she never fully recovered. For the remainder of her life she was unable to stand or walk for very long, and endured a great deal of pain.

Having become dependent on horse-drawn carriages to get around, Anna developed an empathy for the horses. Anna grew to love and care deeply about them, as well as that of all of animals. The treatment of horses she observed all around her was often less than humane.  Read More→

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Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty (1946)

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From the 1945 Harcourt, Brace, and World edition: In Delta Wedding, Eudora Welty brings into an immediate focus a memorable family, living in the rich Delta land Mississippi in the early 1920s.

“The day was the 10th of September, 1923 — afternoon. Laura McRaven, who was in nine years old, was on her first journey alone. She was going to visit her mother’s people, the Fairchild’s, at the plantation named Shellmound …”

Shellmound was the simple white house filled with the magnificent cousins, like a white bowl spilling over with bright flowers. Through Laura we enter the brilliant movement and excitement of this torrent of Fairchilds — whose names even made a various music: India, Battle, Bluet, and Aunt Tempe, Aunt Jim Allen, Orrin, Dabney, and Shelly. Read More→

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