National Velvet

by Enid Bagnold

A butcher's daughter in a small Sussex town ends her nightly prayers with "Oh, God, give me horses, give me horses! Let me be the best rider in England!" The answer to 14-year-old Velvet Brown's plea materializes in the form of an unwanted piebald, raffled off in a village lottery, who turns out to be adept at jumping fences--exactly the sort of horse that could win the world's most famous steeplechase, the Grand National.
Richly atmospheric of rural life in England between the World Wars, National Velvet has enchanted generations of readers since its 1935 debut. The heroine's grit and determination, backed by the support of her eccentric and loving family, offer an inspiring example of the struggles and rewards of following a dream.


"The book is one that horse lovers of every age cannot fail to enjoy."--"The New York Times"

"Humorous, charming, National Velvet is a little masterpiece."--"Time"

"Put on your not-to-be-missed list."--"The New Yorker"

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Horses, Young Adult, Animals, Childrens, Historical Fiction

245 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1935

About the author

British writer of novels and plays, best known for National Velvet and The Chalk Garden.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enid_Bag...

Reviews

[Jacqie · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do you rate a book like this? It's marketed as a children's book, but when I read it as a pre-teen there's no way I got all the subtleties that the author works into her themes. It was written in 1935, so of course it's aged. While I was reading the book, I was very aware that I was being given a slice of life for a way that people don't live anymore. How many people even know what butchering is, much less what it would be like to live in front of a kill yard? There's nowhere I know that would give kids candy bars on credit with the kids carefully tallying up what they owe for when they have the money. The rural way of life, in which most dogs aren't pets, your pony is your means of transportation instead of your hobby, and the village is a long walk away- all pretty much gone.

National Velvet is about a girl and her horse, that's true enough. But it's also about women rising to their best because of a man supporting them, men seeing past appearances to the power of the woman's personality that's hiding underneath, living a life that's poor in resources but rich in community. This is not a kids' book, although a child could read it.

This is also a book for people who know horses. Who know that putting a horse out to grass without grain will make them lose condition, and what that looks like. Who know that a horse can be willing without a clue what to do. Who understand that Sir Pericles is a marvel and that you never want to break his heart. Who can see the stubbornness in a pony's rump turning toward them. That's part of why I love the book- having grown up riding but never having a horse of my own, I really identify with Velvet and her paper animals, her driving pretend horses before bed with tapes for reins. I traced paper horses myself, had Breyer horse miniatures that filled my closet. The way the Bagnold can portray the individual personalities and magnificence of horses while still finding humor in their tricks and quirks, setting it all down in passing while describing a scene, is just masterful.

It's a book that's funny, that's tragic, that's triumphant. It sees below the surface and helps the reader to do the same, if they read carefully. It's an artifact of a time gone by. It's a book for people who love children and animals and remoteness. I've never seen the movie. I can't imagine that it's anywhere close to what the book offers.

[Shirley Revill · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly magical story that has been on my favourite books list since I was a child.
Through the years my children and grandchildren have all enjoyed reading this book that makes you think that no matter how big the dream your dreams can come true.
I also love the film that was made starring a very young Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney and I believe it was Elizabeth Taylor's first movie.
This has to be one of the best classic stories around that never loses its magic.

[Christmas Carol ꧁꧂ · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very quick review as I'm going away tomorrow.

Not an easy book to classify, but I will go with young adult because of Velvet Brown's age. (She was fourteen)

I love the interaction of the Brown family and found them all very easy to relate to. I loved seeing a young girl follow her dreams.

But I did find too much just too improbable and I found the book poorly structured (it took till chapter 7 to get going) and with distractions like the other five horses that took away from the plot without really adding anything. I will add that although I love to look at horses, I don't like being with horses. So this book was always going to be a hard sell for me.

https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This may be one of the strangest books ever written. I first read it when I was eleven or so and didn't understand it. Quite frankly: I still don't. Is it a slice-of-life book? Is it a race book? The race speeds by so fast - more page time is given to the media than to the race - and yet the entire novel turns on those few pages. It's odd.

The first half of the book is purely a family story, and that has its very odd moments, too. Lots of the older girls looking like "golden greyhounds" and being beautiful and Velvet looking boyish or like Dante (huh?). Lots of Donald being - well - impossible. Lots of inadvertently hilarious mealtimes. And some passing commentary that never fails to make me raise an eyebrow:

The Browns loved Jacob [the dog] as they loved each other, deeply, from the back of the soul, with intolerance in daily life.

What do I do with that?

Then there's Mi, who works for the Browns, whose father coached Mrs. Brown back when she was Araminty Potter and swam the Channel against the tide in terrible weather. (Mrs. Brown, with all her imperturbability and her closing of doors in reporters' faces - I think I might love her.) Mi:

Mi watched them go off with a queer look in his eye, a look old Dan had worn when he saw Araminty Brown strike out from the brim of the land. There are men who like to make something out of women.

There's dated and there's dated.

"Don't she ride him!" said the voice. "It's that Velvet girl. The ugly one."

"What, the kid with the teeth?"

"That's who it is."

Mi knew that Mally's beauty stood beside him and he resented it. He half turned his shoulder on her. While Velvet sat on the piebald he thought her the loveliest thing on earth. Like Dan, his father, he hardly saw the faces of women.

First published 1935. Still, it's a funny mix of insight and the oddest misogyny.

The book ends with pages and pages of the press hounding Velvet before deciding she's old news (I think that's the best part of the book: not at all dated, in fact) and a meeting with the Grand National folk who half accuse Mi of trying to steal Velvet's price money (almost 8,000 pounds! In 1935! Wikipedia tells me the prize money is A MILLION POUNDS today!) and Velvet being shy and retiring and "I did it for the horse."

This is a human interest book, I suppose. One where the race is almost unimportant, even as it's the reason the book exists.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4 - Afternoon Drama:
Fourteen year old Velvet is mad about horses. She knows 'there are pleasures earlier than love. Earlier than love, nearer heaven' in the form of horses.

When she wins a piebald horse in a raffle, she recognises he's something special. He can easily clear five-foot fences, and he'll do anything for her. Soon, she and butcher's assistant Mi have their sights set on the biggest race in England. But how can a girl in 1930s England get near Aintree?

Peter Flannery rescues National Velvet from Hollywood, returning 14 year old Velvet to her Sussex butcher's family in the 1930s. A welcome return for Enid Bagnold's strange, inventive fairytale about a young amateur girl rider who takes an untrained horse over the stiffest course in the world and wins.

Sound design: Eloise Whitmore

Author: Enid Bagnold

Dramatised by Peter Flannery
Director/Producer: Melanie Harris
Executive Producer: Polly Thomas

A Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03m7p9z

[Karlyne Landrum · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books ever written about childhood, adulthood and all the days in between. Horse lovers will of course find this fascinating, but it's a book that's much more than a "horse-book". It's a book about family and relationships and knowing your own self and others. I can't recommend it too highly.

[June G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though I've treasured this since I was 12, I'd completely forgotten to include it here until "Flicka"'s lyrical narration on the Hallmark Channel sent me scrambling for book excerpts online (thru red, swollen eyes, of course - hey it's a horse flick!) which led to a lovely "Velvet" detour. And what a lovely book it is - yes, yes, the triumph of the human spirit and all that, which, by the way, can never be overdone in children's or YA or ANY literature for that matter - but Enid Bagnold laid it all out with solid characterizations, just the right pith and passion and all the good feels. Now can we talk about how incredible THAT movie was??

[Beth Bonini · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not long ago, I read Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons -- written in the 1930s and set in rural England, just like this novel. There was an illuminating introduction to that book, in which the editor explained how Gibbons was parodying a writing style and subject matter popular in that era. (If you've read any D.H. Lawrence you will have a feeling for what I'm referring to: the inarticulate but powerful Nature of women and that sort of thing.) I couldn't help think of that essay when I read this book. It is an exceedingly strange book in some ways, and not really meant for children. (You could probably give it to an eccentric 12 year old who is a sophisticated reader.) Nor it is really about horses, although the dramatic climax of the book has 14 year old Velvet (disguised as a boy) winning the Grand National on an appallingly muddy and foggy course. Really, the book is about family -- and about will and desire.

If you can succumb to the peculiar charms of the writing style, you might well enjoy this book . . . but don't buy it for your pony-mad little girl.

[Victor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I encountered this novel in a Short Story collection. Its negative aspects impressed themselves so much on my mind that I felt that the book itself warranted another separate review.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the content of the book. The plot-line while fragmented had some saving graces. Velvet & Mi's touching relationship was great. There was also some joy to be extracted from the family's Kafkaesque demeanour.

What made me dislike the book profusely was the prose. It was too dense and too niche. Bagnold relies too much on cryptic slang. For the average horse fanatic in 1930s England I bet the book would've been a mere couple of hours worth of reading. But for me, and I dare say, us - all of us who live in the 21st century - it's all unintelligible twaddle. To add to this it seems that Bagnold has difficulty grasping the basic tenets of storytelling. Character development and a well formed A-B-C plot structure seemed to have been thrown out the window. The amount of words also do not scale up to the story at all. You could cut out at least half the paragraphs in the book without losing anything in terms of story.

However, even in the face of all these negatives I was somehow able to finish the story. I also came out the book knowing a little bit more about horses, which certainly isn't a bad thing.

But I think the most important thing I got out of this book was that reading is a very subjective experience. I for example, cannot understand how this book's rating can be anything greater than a 3. Or how it got to be made to a movie. Or how it has been anthologized by damn near every professor of literature worth his salt.

It's quite baffling really.

[Janice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like many girls in the last century, I went through a "horsey" phase. (Do girls still do that? I suspect not, but since my acquaintance with modern girls is small, I don't know.) I read all the horsey books I could find in our small local library. Billy and Bangs, Misty of Chincoteague, Brighty of Grand Canyon, Man O' War, etc. (I also read dog books, but I still read those.)

I remember reading National Velvet either in late middle school or early high school. It was one of the books in the bookshelf just outside the door of the Kids Room. That's where the Andre Norton books were too, the stuff that was just a tiny bit more advanced than the kid books.

National Velvet was where I learned the world "piebald." I couldn't quite visualize it, but I had a good idea what it meant.

Anyway, National Velvet was on TCM last night. I watched it for the first time in donkey's years, and was smitten by the desire to read the book again. It's available inexpensively on Kindle, so off I went and read it overnight.

I found I liked the writing style of this story VERY MUCH. It's a dated style, and family life and treatment of animals are very different from now. The girls (Velvet and her sisters) go off and ride horses without supervision. The dog has the run of the bitches of the village. Part of the father's slaughterhouse is apparently just on the other side of one of the walls of the house.

In the midst of all this, Velvet has become enamored of a horse (The Pie) who keeps escaping his enclosure by leaping fences and running through the village. She wins him for a shilling in a village raffle, and somewhere along the way, decides she could bring him into the history books by riding in the National Steeplechase race. The rest of the book is how she gets there, and what happens after.

It's really an extraordinary book. Velvet isn't a supergirl. She has a nervous stomach and vomits easily. She's skinny and has buck teeth. She gets tired and nervous. Mi (short for Michael) Taylor, her partner in the race prep, is her father's employee. He is NOT a love interest, anywhere along the line. He's a facilitator, helping Velvet with the knowledge he gained working at various racecourses over the years. He's also the son of the man who coached Violet's mother, Araminty, when she swam the English Channel when she was 19.

So Velvet wins the race, then faints and falls off The Pie, which leads to the discovery that she is, in fact, a girl. The National Hunt committee men meet to decide what's to be done - whether to prosecute someone for attempts to "defraud". That led to this little exchange between a couple of the men:

"If my daughter'd done it," said Lord Henry Vile, "I'd be..." He paused and stroked his lip with his finger.
"Pretty upset, I should think..."
"I wasn't going to say that," said Lord Henry. "No."

The men in this story either HELP (Mi Taylor) or don't hinder (pretty much the rest of them) Velvet. Her mother is Velvet's rock. The other family members have their quirks and foibles (and how WEIRD is Donald the one boy in the crew???), and the shape of the family is very different to what we're used to now. But it's a good family, and they're good together.

Now I want to read more Enid Bagnold. :)

[Kris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Baffling. As a children's book set in rural 1930s England, you wouldn't think the language would sound too foreign to twenty-first-century American ears. Yet the vocabulary of this book is odd: a mix of character and setting names with historical (and perhaps fictional) slang of the time. As a reader muddling through, you can pick up things eventually. Some meaning can be inferred from context. While some words like gymkhana and kedgeree demand a dictionary. But you never quite totally grasp what people are saying or what's going on. This does not make for a pleasant reading experience. It's not a charming, quaint vocabulary, like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, just baffling and confusing. Watch the 1944 movie instead.

[Tarissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

'National Velvet' is not what I thought it would be. In fact, it was one of the more disheartening books I've read in a while. My issue is with the style and content of the story -- because the overall plot is just dandy! (i.e., girl trains horse to become a race champion? Awesome.)

Let's start at the beginning, shall we? My problems with it started on page 1. And yet, I thought that it must get better. It's a children's classic, right? So it has to be good. Or not, depending on who you are.

So, page 1. My first hurdle to get over was the writing style. It's different than almost any other book I've read, thus, it was hard to just "fall into" the story seamlessly. Believe me, I've read a LOT of books, and classic literature is a personal forté of mine. I'll all for the vintage and antique hardbound gems. But this one threw me for a loop. Perhaps it's the dryness of the words. There's no wit, no humor, or no glory in it. (Except for the last page or two at the end -- which really was fantastic and was the best text found in the whole volume! In my humble opinion, of course.)

Another big issue I have with the book is that there was quite a sprinkling of foul language in it. Perhaps the author didn't quite mean it that way, and of course, the book was written when times were a little different. But I was still surprised. In fact, I had both an abridged version and unabridged version of the book. I scoured page after page to pinpoint exactly what they had changed in the abridged version, and come to find out, it looks like the only text that had to be changed was the foul language I kept finding in the original unabridged copy. But even in the one abridged for children, not all incidents were trimmed out. For what the publisher tried to do though, I was grateful!

Now, I've got to admit something that is extremely rare and, even in this case, a bit hard for me to digest. I have found a situation where the movie is astoundingly better than the book. Who knew?! It's an unwritten rule among us bookworms that the book is always better. But, I finally found the loophole to that saying, and 'National Velvet' is the one. In fact, I would go so far to say that the movie (you know, the one with young Elizabeth Taylor starring alongside Mickey Rooney) is in fact beautiful and enchanting. It has characters that come alive, and a plot that inspires you. THAT is the story I wanted to read!

At what age should children read it? Well, I wouldn't personally recommend it for young readers. Of course, it certainly fluctuates with each individual child, but I best recommend it for ages 14 and up. Even then, if the kid can't connect with the writing style or story, well... it's not the most engrossing book.

So, I've made my case. Truly, I wanted to enjoy this book, but I guess it's just not the one for me. Maybe the next reader will have better luck with it.

[Pam Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even as a middle aged woman, National Velvet remains one of the most beautifully yet earnestly written books I've ever read. It's really not for children at all--it's far grittier in places yet irresistibly intimate and realistic in regards to the gentle bickering of families and working class backgrounds. It champions women: the obese mother and the skeletal daughter with buck teeth. That Velvet is the only homely child in the household, again, Bagnold creates triumph out of the female spirit that doesn't depend on beauty. Pretty powerful stuff and quite rare in any literature. I adored the prose. I adored the dialogue. When Mi is running and crying and pushing through the crowds, unable to even see Velvet in the race, it's heart pounding. And dare I say I detested the film. Velvet was written as a scrawny, sickly child whose sheer determination and ambition for her horse made her great. To cast the beautiful Elizabeth Taylor, who could no more pass for a boy than a Kardashian, to play the frankly unattractive Velvet was a sell out and a slap in the face to any plain, flat chested girl with a dream who might have been inspired by the book.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

My children and I just read this book together. The storyline was refreshing and tender but the writing style was choppy. The author gave beautiful descriptions, yet it was a hard book to read aloud. There were times that we could not decipher whose emotions we were reading about, a dog, horse, child or adult. We read many books outloud, this one was the most laborious. We kept going because we loved the storyline. After completing the book, we watched the movie starring Elizabeth Taylor. I know my children listened to the book because they pointed out all the discrepancies. This is proof that although it was a tough read, the children had great comprehension and a love of the original story.

[Tessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know, when I was young(er) I loved this book because it was a good story. Now that I'm old(er) I'm stunned by just what a truly fantastic writer Enid Bagnold is.

[Kristen (belles_bookshelves) · Rating 2 out of 5]

“I don’t like people,” said Velvet. “…I only like horses.”

I'm so disappointed in myself that I didn't love this book, because I ADORE horse books. And this one has such an amazing premise: young, small town girl trains a nobody horse to be a champion. It's The Black Stallion. It's Justin Morgan Had a Horse. It's Seabiscuit: An American Legend. But this was more about Velvet than about The Pie.

It's not that I don't love books about strong female leads. But there was so much story here that I feel has nothing to do with The Pie. I understand we're setting up Velvet's life with talk of her sister's birds or her brother's tantrums, not only do we not see any of Velvet and Mi's training of The Pie, but we don't see the race at all.

To me, that's the most amazing part of a horse novel: getting to ride a race with the jockey. Sierra's Steeplechase. The Black Stallion's Courage. Gaudenzia, Pride of the Palio. It was a disappointing climax to the story to not get to feel that rush, to go through the race with Velvet. I'm never going to run a cross country steeplechase, but through books is my chance. I kind of felt jilted.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A young girl at church today told me she had five horses. This immediately brought National Velvet to mind, and I wanted to ask if she had read this most excellent book, but the service began and I did not get to. I dislike the movie with Elizabeth Taylor very much, mainly because MGM didn't take the trouble to find a piebald jumper, or even a white jumper that black patches could be applied to with dye, but instead added to the story to explain why Velvet called him "The Pie". One of her sisters disappeared, and one changed from blonde to brunette. The many canaries that one sister bred were reduced to paper pictures. I also take exception to the way Mi Taylor (Mickey Rooney) was portrayed as a young man of questionable character. Okay, rant over. Here is my synopsis of National Velvet.
Velvet Brown is the youngest daughter of a butcher and a woman who swam the English Channel before her marriage. Her mother has put on a lot of weight since that feat. Velvet lives in a small English village, and the story is set, as far as I can tell, in the 1920's. She has three gorgeous older sisters, described in the book as 'sleek golden greyhounds' and a younger brother, Donald. Velvet herself is described as thin, with 'cotton hair' and wears a plate to correct her buck teeth. Animals in the household are Jacob, a hound, and Miss Ada, an old cart pony. Mi Taylor is Mr. Brown's assistant. He was trusted with the job because his father was Mrs. Brown's swimming coach who helped her swim the Channel.
Velvet is obsessed with horses, and wants to own so many that she can have a choice which one to ride. She cuts horses out of magazines and keeps the pictures in a box. She pretends to drive or ride horses when she is out walking alone. When she is in bed before she goes to sleep she "drives" by tying a cloth tape around her big toes. (I tried this after reading the book the first time. It is quite realistic if one has a strong imagination.) Her family accepts these actions and do not belittle her in any way. About the only thing she gets in trouble for is removing her plate because it is uncomfortable. She meets a gentleman while delivering meat to his home early in the morning, and tells him about her desire to own horses. The man introduces her to his saddle horses, and has her sign a paper. Then he goes away a little distance, and shoots himself. He had willed his five horses to Velvet. Later, Velvet wins a piebald gelding in a raffle. The horse could not be contained because it jumped out of any fenced field or corral, and the owner put him up for the raffle because he was tired of chasing him.
The Pie is such a strong jumper that Mi begins training him for The Grand National, the biggest race in England. Mrs. Brown provides her winnings from the Channel swim for the entrance fee. There are many obstacles to this crazy plan, one of which is that Velvet is the only rider who can handle The Pie. This would be a non-issue today, but at that place and time, a female rider in The Grand National was unthinkable. The preparations for the race, the race itself and the notoriety after the race make up the rest of the book. There is no romance, but lots of familial care and love underneath the day-to-day busyness in the household.
I love this book. I am not sure I still own a copy, but I have it memorized to the extent that I can just go through it in my head. I saw on IMDb that two additional versions have been made, but I have not seen either of them yet. I hope they are closer to the book than the MGM version. Seriously, everyone should read National Velvet at least once in his or her life.

[Lisa Sunden · Rating 4 out of 5]

National Velvet is about 14 year old Velvet Brown she has always wanted horses. She eventually gets some from a deceased friend she made and she also got Piebald. Piebald was a horse who had a mind of his own he hated being kept in his own field plus he liked to jump so almost everyday he would jump out of his field and venture into the town. Then Velvet started riding him. They were an amazing match. They clicked right away. She decides to take him to a gymkhana. After that Mi (her best friend) tells her that she should enter the Grand National. Mi get her entered with his connections in the racing world. They enter her as James Tasky as girls aren't allowed to ride in the race. Velvet goes on the win the race but ends up getting disqualified because she gets falls of Pie due to exhaustion and when they check her out to make sure she's ok they figure out she's a girl.

Pie and Velvet go in to be instant legends. She insists that she wasn't the one that won the race it was Piebald. She didn't care if she went down in history she just wanted everyone to see understand what a legendary horse Piebald was.

[Laura Bang · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather oddly written -- it took me a few chapters to get used to the style (and, rather like Narrow Dog To Carcassonne, which I read earlier this year, I just had to make peace with always being vaguely confused about what was going on). I picked this up from the children's section of the library, but it doesn't really strike me as a children's book unless you've got a really sophisticated reader who is interested in early 20th-century British family life. It's definitely more about a girl and the people around her than about the horses in her life -- the horses are often overshadowed or just plain forgotten. I still found it enjoyable despite its quirks and I especially liked that the story doesn't just end with the race but goes a bit further to deal with the frenzy of fame and controversy.

[Virág · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. Sometimes, I just can't stand books written in "old" style writing, but I just adored National Velvet. The characters, the plot, the descriptions... it was all just very well done.

First off, Velvet is a fourteen year old girl who aspires to become the best rider in England and win the Grand National. The amazing thing is, she actually does it! Now who wouldn't love such a heroine? She's very sweet and innocent, but very determined and she loves her family, and of course Mi and her horse.

The story itself was well laid out: how Velvet wins Pie, trains him, and the excitment of the Grand National. And the author didn't go overboard with the details, but laid them out in an interesting way.
This is obviously a classic for horse lovers, but consider reading it even if you don't love horses.

[Patra · Rating 2 out of 5]

I watched this movie several times as a child, but never read the book. I am a horse fan and so I've watched most movies that have something to do with horses. Even though it was about a horse, I always felt there was something not quite right in the film. It just seemed....strange. I couldn't really identify with the main character.

I now understand why the movie was like that - because the book is strange too :) The story isn't very cohesive and lacks depth. The family in the story is just bizarre. It made the story slightly comical, but most of the time it just didn't make sense.

I'm not sure why this story became a classic nor why the movie is considered a great horse movie. And I wouldn't recommend this book to any horse-lover. There's more to the canaries in this book than horses.

[Tiffany · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't read this book for a while, but when I was like Velvet, a young, horse-crazy dreamer, this book was a definite big hit. I totally understood how Velvet would "loose her lunch" at the sight of a beautiful horse, and this book supported my own horse love. I loved the movie, but never could figure out why they made the horse a big chestnut instead of what he was, a Piebald, which is how he got his name. I remember when reading this book that I fell into the story, I think I breathed it and lived it. I fell in love with Mrs. Brown, Velvet's mother, and all her sisters were real to me, as I never had any. Enid Bagnold did a fantastic job at creating a familial reality that a reader could slip into easily.

[Phobean]

I remember, as a kid, trying and trying to read this book. It was tough to get into. That wall of British culture that my American sensibilities could only barely breach. I desperately wanted to spend time with fictional horses. Can't recall if I finished National Velvet, or if I liked it, but I'll always enjoy way the title feels in my mouth.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Film was better than the book - that's rare isn't it!

[L · Rating 4 out of 5]

National Velvet is a story that every horse mad girl would devour within an instant and it was hence a novel that i fell in love with as a child/ teenager for its horse & horse racing content. The only way that i can describe it is when reading this story it was like opening a window into your heart and glimpsing ones dreams & aspirations within. Emotive and captivating this book really does tug on the heartstrings and leave you breathless, whilst following a double story of the young girl and also her horse. 'The Pie' and also Velvet have become two of the most common and well loved names within English Literature and fiction and this book i can say with certainty goes much deeper that just a mere children's story. This book was truly inspiring and empowering from the point of view of someone who had racing dreams as a child and who longed to one day (similarly to the main character) be able to ride an altheletic horse at high speed in a race. Fortunately within the story this 'dream' was made possible and i remember myself reading this when i was younger and cheering at the end of the book, being that i was so happy in the knowlege that the main character and my heroine had sucseeded majestically. The main character epitomises the very backbone and stability of what a heroine should be; someone who is strong willed, determined and passionate and someone whom many readers would look up to and aspire to be like. Corageous and thought provoking this novel was such an enjoyable read that has really stood the test of time and still proves even today that it is and always will be a firm favourite, and a book that many will love both adults and children alike. The old-style of writing and English only added to the authentic & realistic feel of the book and as for the creativity and imagination that just blew me away, i was thus captivated by Enid Bagnold's book in an insant. I can also remember as a child cutting out small photographs of horses from magazines and naming them, which was ironic and something that i found to be most touching when i read the first chapter of the book and found the similarlity between myself as a child and the main character. This in turn made me thus able to relate and empathise with the main character even more so because there were a lot of similarlities between us, which i found made the story that much more personal to myself. This is not just a children's story but a book that many will love for its strong themes, emotion and depth of feeling, that make it such a winner.

[Becky Benishek · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw the movie first, with Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney, and it was enchanting.

This book reveals such depth and astonishing elements that I return to it more than the movie. This is no mere horse-crazy teenager. From the opening setting of the scene that introduces us to Velvet, to the rare involved comprehension of her entire family, each with their own remarkable quirks, including Mi Taylor, who is at first more of a general errands-man for the slaughterhouse business, I found myself quickly absorbed into the people and story.

There's a line early on that I particularly love that describes the mother, Mrs. Brown:
"You can never tell what Mother's thinking," said Mally to Velvet.
"She doesn't think where we do," said Velvet. "She thinks at the back."

There are also some very odd elements not included in the movie, probably to streamline the screenplay, which may or may not delight the reader; I do appreciate the closeness of the sisters here where the focus was understandably on Elizabeth Taylor in the movie. And one mustn't forget the youngest, Donald!

The age of this book shouldn't matter. It's a delight. It's worth the read. The context helps you understand any colloquial/regional phrasing.

There's also a certain style about it that reminds me of "Meet Me In St. Louis" (Sally Benson); something in the way the girls of the story act and react. When you think of certain eras and cultural mores, you may think of docility and ankles crossed and demure behavior. Here you've got girls being (gasp!) people. There are still limitations in their environment, yes, but there's a definite feel of the environment not winning.

Even if you don't know anything about horses or perhaps don't particularly care to know too much about horses, I still recommend this story because it is that good.

[Debbie Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this long ago, as a horse-crazy girl. I am still a horse-crazy girl in a 55-year-old body, however, with horses! This book brought the world of steeplechasing, England's culture, racing culture, to me. Long before Dick Frances wrote about racing, Enid Bagnold wrote about a girl who dreamed of riding in the Grand National, the toughest Steeplechase in the world. Of course, girls couldn't be jockeys, so the heroine must pretend to be one.
I lived vicariously through the heroine, who Elizabeth Taylor played in the movie, with Mickey Rooney as the trainer who helps her.
This is a book I would love to re-read as an adult. So many books...so little time!

[S Economy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started this book with my 10 year old daughter as a read aloud as I loved the movie from my childhood. But after a couple of chapters we gave up because the rural English language Bagnold uses was too difficult for us to understand. Also the story just wasn’t grabbing us. And it’s not like we don’t enjoy older books because we loved The Secret Garden, The Little House books and Anne of Green Gables. We did rent the Elizabeth Taylor/Mickey Rooney movie which, IMO, has stood the test of time as a classic movie of a young girl achieving her dream. I wish the book had done the same.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exhilarating read about impossible dreams' being realized. I read this aloud to a ten year old daughter whose mild interest in horses had been quenched by a broken arm in the practice ring, but we both still loved the story. No, it's not realistic, but when did fiction always have to be?

[SheriC · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book as a child and loved Velvet's story. I loved the fragments I could understand, anyway, because the story contains foods, events, and household items that were entirely foreign to a child in 1970's Texas. Even after all these years of enjoying British fiction, there's still a few things I'm puzzled about, because I really don't have any context for what would be considered normal vs eccentric in 1920's rural Sussex. And why the horror of wearing muslins to the gymkhana? What are muslins? I know it's a fabric, but the book treats it as a hated garment the girls are made to wear. Was it an especially ugly dress? Donald is obviously a precocious and mightily spoiled child, but is his spit bottle within the range of normal little boy things for that time? I don't know. I might never know. At least I now know what treacle is, and can google all the other terms. Thank god for google.

Listening to this on audio now as an adult, there's so much more to this story that I can appreciate. The prose is a treat, the family is enchanting, with such distinct and unique personalities, and I understand both Velvet and her mother much better.