When I read it to my daughter I couldn't read the Ginger chapter so she took the book and read it herself. I think the book is one of my oldest possessions [I don't remember carrying it around with me on my travels through life, but here it is next to me after all these years]. Gave me a lifelong love of horses. Wonder it didn't traumatise us all, though. I mean, Black Beauty's brother dies in Chapter 2. The chapter about Captain 'An Old War Horse' is like an early version of War Horse. I said, 'I have heard people talk about war as if it were a very fine thing'.'Ah!' said he,'I should think they never saw it. No doubt it is very fine when there is no enemy, when it is just an exercise and parade and sham fight. Yes, it is very fine then; but when thousands of good brave men and horses are killed, or crippled for life, it has a very different look'. I wonder how much the book shaped my ideas on things like war when I read it as a child?