still a favorite after 30 years

books:


	• "National Velvet" Enid Bagnold W. Morrow, 1949 - 306 pages average customer review:based on 22 reviews
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highly recommended

TIMELESS STORY

National Velvet by Enid Bagnold is full of fun and super exciting!
Velvet is a girl who lives in a village in England. She dreams of having a horse. Within two weeks she has six! One is a piebald who can jump like a dream. Velvet decides to enter him in the most famous steeplechase in England; the Grand National. Although girls are not allowed to enter Velvet disguises her self as a boy and enters. Can she win the race? Or more importantly, will she get caught?
I was always wondering what would happen next. Because of the two page illustrations I could easily picture every setting. (Refers to an original book club edition, 1935, illustrated by Winslow.) Velvet was crazy to risk her and her horse's life and limb as well as a large fine, which I thought I would never have been able to do. I would have been too scared.
Enid Bagnold shows us that winning is not everything and fame does not last. This timeless story is a lot of fun from cover to cover!

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A classic horse story

This is a great classic story. I read it first as a child and have read it many times since then. The author is British and she writes in a very classic, literary way that may be difficult at first to "get into." However, even written this way it's not a boring story. One of the best things about this book is Velvet's family. The family is portrayed as being dedicated to each other without being sappy and simplistic. The parents are strong moral people. Ultimately, the family is happy and this gives Velvet strength to do a heroic deed.
I keep going back to National Velvet because it is a classic story written without the cheap gimmicks of mystery, cliffhanger's and confrontations. This is a good book for family to read aloud too.

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still a favorite after 30 years

I received this book when I was 9, loved it immediately, and kept it on my bookshelf always. I'm almost 40 now and just reread it (it's one of my "comfort" books) and was once again blown away by the beauty and astonishing metaphors of Bagnold's prose.
She is a lovely writer. I wish I could write as well as her. Our window into the Brown family is clear and uncluttered; we get to watch as the girls relate to each other, speak in their own family shorthand, deal with their similarities and differences. I adore the way the family accepts each other - each with their own quirks and peculiarities. Velvet, with her profound love of horses and her very 14-year-old imagination. Merry immersed in the world of canaries. Edwina on the brink of adulthood. Mally, Velvet's closest friend, sharing candy bars and secret plans.
I was such a girl myself, with my own imaginary stable of mounts... but my appreciation of the book goes beyond a recognition of similarity; Enid Bagnold simply writes with a sophistication few writers for young adults share... with no condecension and no need for explanation.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

The timeless story of spirited Velvet Brown and her beloved horse has thrilled generations of readers. And now the republication of this classic story in a fresh, up-to-date package will charm confirmed fans while captivating new ones. Fourteen-year-old Velvet is determined to turn her untamed horse into a champion and personally ride him to victory in the world's greatest steeplechase, the Grand National.

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