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A review by lavendermarch
National Velvet by Enid Bagnold
4.0
I got this book for two dollars at a library sale over the weekend. I'd heard of National Velvet, but never read it, even though I devoured horse books when I was younger.
It took me a bit to get used to the way National Velvet was written. It was written about eighty years ago, so everyone talks differently in the book, and things are just older, which threw me for a bit of a loop. However, after getting used to that, I did enjoy the book. Bagnold is an excellent writer, and her imagery was really well done. I could picture each of the characters and their mannerism and such in my head, and I was pulled into the story.
The action really got going in the second half of the book, and I liked what Bagnold did with the plot - she had Velvet win the race, and then wrote about the uproar that followed, which I thought was kind of interesting. I liked Velvet well enough, and the cover of the copy of the book I have is nice.
I'm glad I read this book, and now I want to watch the movie (it has Elizabeth Taylor in it!) as this is the kind of book that would be exciting onscreen. I do think that I enjoy the Pony Club Secrets series and Paint the Wind a bit more, due to the more modern language, but this is obviously an older and well written addition to the children's horse books cannon.
It took me a bit to get used to the way National Velvet was written. It was written about eighty years ago, so everyone talks differently in the book, and things are just older, which threw me for a bit of a loop. However, after getting used to that, I did enjoy the book. Bagnold is an excellent writer, and her imagery was really well done. I could picture each of the characters and their mannerism and such in my head, and I was pulled into the story.
The action really got going in the second half of the book, and I liked what Bagnold did with the plot - she had Velvet win the race, and then wrote about the uproar that followed, which I thought was kind of interesting. I liked Velvet well enough, and the cover of the copy of the book I have is nice.
I'm glad I read this book, and now I want to watch the movie (it has Elizabeth Taylor in it!) as this is the kind of book that would be exciting onscreen. I do think that I enjoy the Pony Club Secrets series and Paint the Wind a bit more, due to the more modern language, but this is obviously an older and well written addition to the children's horse books cannon.