SILAS AND THE BLACK MARE

by Cecil Bfdker ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 7, 1978

This fresh, hearty Danish import is the first of a series about Silas, a resourceful and quick-thinking innocent, who runs away from an abusive sword swallower and soon wins a beautiful black mare from a horse trader who takes the loss of the wager with exceptionally bad grace. From the first-page moment when Silas drifts down the river into the horse trader's view, he commands a wary curiosity; and he continues to astound and to be astounded throughout his subsequent encounters--with a girl who has no eyes, her fierce mother, a treacherous farmer who steals the mare, a cowardly peddler, a friendly lame cowherd Silas' age, and a delightfully drawn otter hunter who sees through all the others and plays his own sly games with them. The story ends with the full cast assembled for an auction of the mare on the one street of a mean, impoverished village; Bfdker pulls off this climactic scene as adeptly as Silas does the recovery of his mount. The whole, highly original story is related with a degree of shrewd humor and an absence of moralizing interference that are still hard to come by in children's books.

Pub Date: June 7, 1978

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1978

Categories: FICTION