As a horse-loving kid, I read Walter Farley's "The Black Stallion" so many times the book fell apart.
Alec Ramsay's adventures with the beautiful horse became my own, and I was grateful to experience, in the pages of the book, what I had so often dreamed about: To care for a horse.
As over 5,000 students streamed into the Tucson Convention Center on Thursday to see the Arabian Nights Equine Show, I found myself remembering Alec's exciting relationship with the wild, fictional animal.
And I also realized something else: "The Black Stallion" not only solidified my life-long love of horses, it also helped establish my passionate love of reading.
And that's the goal of the Black Stallion Literacy Project, which started in 1999 and this year includes more than 80,000 young participants nationwide.
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As part of the project, students were invited to see the horse show Thursday.
Walter Farley's son, Tim Farley, set up the literacy foundation in collaboration with Mark Miller, owner of the Arabian Nights Equine Show, based in Florida.
The horse show includes trick riding as well as scenes from the book.
Tim Farley attended Thursday's event.
"My father started writing (The Black Stallion) when he wasn't much older than you. He was 16 and wrote it at the kitchen table," Tim Farley said to the TCC audience of mostly fourth-graders and their teachers.
Walter Farley didn't own a horse, his son explained, but he loved horses and learned about them from his veterinarian uncle.
"And he also had a special person in his life, his teacher, who said, 'This is a good story. You should finish it,' " Tim Farley said.
Farley encouraged his young Tucson listeners to take their own ideas seriously, as his father had.
"I hope you follow your dreams. I hope you follow your inspiration," he said.
Patti Lopez, the project's southwest regional director, said the Black Stallion Literacy Project is now in 11 states.
"Our goals are to promote reading and literacy," she said. "We have hundreds of schools here in Arizona, up through the Navajo Nation, who are doing this project."
Miranda Gleeson, a fourth-grade teacher at Tucson Country Day School, said this is the first year she has participated. It's also the first time she's read the book.
"I wish I'd read it before. It's a really cool book," she said.
One of her students, Fabian Boatner, 9, found the shipwreck scene in the beginning very exciting.
"That part was awesome. I didn't think that they were going to survive," he said.
As the horses and riders performed, and scenes from the book unfolded, the audience yelled and clapped.
"My kids loved it. Oh, just seeing their faces when that (first) horse came out. It was like they were opening Christmas presents," said Courtney Hinshaw, a fourth-grade teacher of 22 students at Los Amigos Elementary School.
Hinshaw has attended the event three times, first as a student teacher and now twice with her own students.
"We make it really come alive for them and we tell them they are going to go see a black stallion," she said of the project.
"It was such an enriching experience, and I don't think they'll ever forget it."
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"The Black's ears pricked forward, his eyes followed the boy nervously - some of the savageness returned to them, his muscles twitched. For a moment Alec was undecided what to do. Then his hands gripped the mane tighter and he threw himself on the Black's back. For a second the stallion stood motionless, then he snorted and plunged …"
- Walter Farley,
"The Black Stallion"
Contact reporter Patty Machelor at 806-7754 or pmachelor@azstarnet.com
