Little Black Goes to the Circus! by Walter Farley, Illustrated by James Schucker, Barnes & Noble Books Hardcover Reprint, 2000

The Piece

A hardcover in the tall Beginner Books trim, laminated boards, no dust jacket as issued. The cover is a single strong image: a small black pony under a circus tent, front hooves up on a pedestal, with the ring and the crowd behind him.

Schucker's illustration is the reason the book still reads well. He drew horses properly — the anatomy is correct, the weight sits where it should, and the pony moves like an animal rather than a cartoon. The interior is worked in a limited palette, mostly black, red and yellow against white, which is what the early-reader printing budget allowed and what gives these books their graphic snap.

Inside, the paper is bright and the text is set large and open across every page.

History & Provenance

This copy is a Barnes & Noble Books reprint published in 2000. It is not a vintage book and it is not a first edition, and we would rather say that at the top than bury it. The ISBN printed on it is 0-7607-2191-2; the 0-7607 prefix belongs to Barnes & Noble's own reprint imprint, which only came into use in the 1990s. The 1963 that appears on the copyright page is the date of the text, not of this copy.

What is genuinely of 1963 is the book itself. Little Black Goes to the Circus! was written by Walter Farley for Random House's Beginner Books line, the sequel to his Little Black, a Pony of 1961. Farley is the author of The Black Stallion — he wrote it as a teenager and published it in 1941, and it became one of the most durable horse novels in American publishing. The Little Black books are Farley writing the same subject down to a two-hundred-word vocabulary for children who could not yet read the novel.

James Schucker illustrated both. He was a working commercial illustrator who specialised in animals, and the plainness of the drawing is deliberate: a beginning reader has to be able to decode the picture as fast as the sentence.

Product Details

Why It Belongs in Your Home

Buy this one for the pictures and the story, not for age. It is a clean, sturdy, well-drawn horse book by the author of The Black Stallion, and for a child who has decided that horses are the only acceptable subject, it is exactly right — simple enough to read alone, serious enough about the animal not to feel babyish.

On a shelf it works as part of a run of early readers rather than as a single statement piece, and it prices accordingly. For a shop, it is an easy add-on next to the Beginner Books: a recognisable author, a subject that sells itself, and a low enough ticket that nobody hesitates.

A note on care: laminated boards are tougher than dust jackets but not invincible. Keep it out of direct sun, wipe with a dry or barely damp cloth and never a cleaner, and shelve upright rather than stacked under weight.