Feature & Follow Friday #9: (Fictional) Animal I Would Choose as a Pet

Welcome to Feature & Follow Friday!!

This weekly hop is hosted by  

Rachel @ Parajunkee's View, and 

Alison @ Alison Can Read!!

You can find the rules at the links above.

Join in the fun and make new blogging friends!

Every week, 1 or 2 new blogs 
are featured!

This week's featured blogs
are
The Book Junkie
and

Little Book Heaven!

Here is this week's question:

If you could have any animal in the world as a pet,which would you pick?
Fictional ones count, too!

Contributed by
Book Cat Pin

This is the easiest question I've ever had to answer in any of the Feature & Follow posts! 

The animal I would definitely pick was my childhood dream pet, the animal I pretended to see running beside my parents' car as I sat in the back seat when we went on Sunday drives: The Black Stallion.

I fell in love with this horse, created by Walter Farley, around the age of 10 or 11. And, to this day, the Arabian breed is my favorite horse breed. 

I used to dream of having The Black Stallion as a pet. I would groom him, hug him, and ride him bareback, and he would run like the wind! He would be gentle with me, and no one else. Our friendship would last forever.....

I've read just about every Black Stallion book written by Farley.  He wrote about other horses, too, of course, but my heart will only, and always, belong to "The Black" as he is known in the books......

The Black Stallion

(The Black Stallion, Book 1)

Walter Farley

Trade Paperback, 187 pages

Random House

August 20, 1991

(first published 1941)

Classics, Horse Fiction, Young Adult Fiction

Next Week's Question

Share a random quote from the book
you are currently reading.


Contributed by

Journey Through Fiction

These are my follow preferences.
The links are in my sidebar.

 Be sure to visit the rest of the
participating blogs!!

Book Blogger Hop #9 (9/21 - 9/27) What my blog readers probably don't know about me is...

 

 

 

Welcome to

the Book Blogger Hop!

 

This is where bloggers and readers

connect every week!

 

This wonderful blog hop is

hosted by

Jennifer @ Crazy for Books!

 

What To Do
 

1. Post on your blog answering this question:

 

What is one thing that your
blog readers probably
do not know about you?

 

2. Enter the link to your post in the

Linky list @ Crazy for Books

(enter your blog name, genre you review,

and a direct link to your post

answering this week's question). 

 

3. Visit other blogs on the list.

This blog hop isn't about the number of

people you can visit,

but the quality of each visit.

Find new blogs to read by clicking

through the links on the list!

 

My Answer:

What they don't know is how I started reading science fiction! 

I have to give a little bit of background first...

 

When I was around 10, I started reading a lot of horse books, and loved to draw winged unicorns whenever I got bored in class.  I read such books as the Black Stallion novels, by Walter Farley, My Friend Flicka, Black Beauty, National Velvet, etc.  I was really into horses, although my parents wouldn't let me get riding lessons because they were afraid I would fall off a horse.  (And break my glasses and/or some body part.) 

Shelf Candy Saturday #17: National Velvet, by Enid Bagnold

This wonderful book meme/blog hop

is hosted by

Stephanie @

Five Alarm Book Reviews!!

The purpose of this feature is to display

a beautiful book cover,

with information, if available,

about the cover illustrator,

photographer, and/or designer.

For all the participation rules,

just click

HERE.

Here's my pick for this week!

National Velvet

Enid Bagnold

Paperback, 246 pages

Mammoth

(an imprint of Egmont

Children's Books Limited)

2000

(originally published in 1935)

Genre: Horse Fiction, YA

Why do I love this cover?

Well, first of all, I love horses!  ( I guess that's pretty obvious by now...lol.)  I first started reading books about them around the age of 11 or 12, and, for several years thereafter, I devoured every horse-related novel I came across!  I not only read National Velvet, but also most of The Black Stallion books, by Walter Farley, Man O'War, also by Walter Farley, the Flicka trilogy (My Friend Flicka, Thunderhead, Green Grass of Wyoming), by Mary O'Hara, King of the Wind, by Marguerite Henry, and many other assorted horse stories.

Next, I think the horse on this cover is superbly painted!  He has a beautiful profile, with all those delicately shaded areas.  His nose looks so soft...I feel as if I could almost touch it, and can even imagine him softly snorting, as he stands next to his owner, Velvet.  Oh, I want to pet him so badly...

His mane is stirred by a strong breeze, and this is echoed in Velvet's hair.  They're both looking toward the sunset, or is it the dawn?  This is not only very realistic, but also tells me that horse and rider are united in the pursuit of one goal.  The cover symbolically depicts this, adding to my admiration of this artist's skill!

Velvet, the main character in this book, calls her horse "The Pie", because he's a piebald.  According to Wikipedia, a piebald can be any animal "...that has a spotting pattern of large unpigmented, usually white, areas of hair, feathers, or scales and normally pigmented patches, generally black."  If you take a look at the left-hand edge of this cover, you'll see that the horse has dark patches along his neck.  I'm glad the artist didn't place any patches on his face, though.  I think it looks so beautiful as it is -- just plain white!

The artist who created this

gorgeous cover is

Chris Chapman!!

You can see many of his

paintings at the link above.

I tried to find this particular

book illustration, with more information

on how it was created,

but was unable to.

I did find another site with

other book illustrations by

Chapman, but am wondering if

this is the same person.

You can find those illustrations

HERE.

You can access Chapman's

website HERE.

So what do you think 

of this cover?

What beautiful cover(s) 

are you featuring this week?