- ISBN13: 9780060567040
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Beautiful Jim Key -- the one-time ugly duckling of a scrub colt who became one of the most beloved heroes of the turn of the century -- was adored not for his beauty and speed but rather for his remarkable abilities to read, write, spell, do mathematics, even debate politics. Trained with patience and kindness by one of the most renowned horse whisperers of his day -- former slave, Civil War veteran, and self-taught veterinarian Dr. William Key -- Jim performed in e... More >>
Beautiful Jim Key: The Lost History of the World's Smartest Horse
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I hate it when an author takes a perfectly good [true] story and ruins it with a lousy writing style filled with too much preaching and garbage that detracts from the story.
The parts about the horse himself and his intelligent abilities were great.
The rest of the book is not worth reading. I just skimmed over those parts.
It was an easy book to put down except when I was reading about the horse himself.
This story would be great had a different author done the writing.
This author, however, was a terrible choice for such a magnificent story.
Rating: 2 / 5
Beautiful Jim Key was a smart, smart horse, there is no doubt about it.
So was Clever Hans who was famous years later.
Hans was shown to be not a fraud or a con but a very clever horse who knew how to trick people into thinking he could do arithmetic and spell etc.
No one did that with Jim but it took a long time to figure out what was going on with Hans and I’m certain that if they had tried it with Jim they would have found the same thing.
This is a good account of things and it makes a nice story but in the end it’s just sloppy journalism.
Rating: 2 / 5
Beautiful Jim Key is a heart-warming story of a very smart, unusual horse which is impossible not to love. This book is for anyone who loves horses or animals in general. The story is well written and entertaining. An easy read with lots of good information about a little known phenomenon.
Rating: 5 / 5
Beautifully written. A tribute to all animals. A strong reminder not to take our beloved animals for granted and to treat them with love, patience, kindness and understanding everyday. Very interesting history intertwined in the story.
Rating: 5 / 5
I purchased this in soft cover, planning to give it to my mother for Christmas, but I read it first and liked it enough that I ordered the hard cover for my mother and kept the soft cover for myself. This is a fascinating read. What makes it more than a great animal story is the way it is told within the historical context of the time. There were so many interesting facts and descriptions detailing the period from before, during, and after the Civil War, Reconstruction, and into the early 20th century. The subject matter is extremely fresh, told in an easy manner that makes it fast and easy to read and yet memorable and thought provoking. The subtitle of the soft cover is slightly different from the hard cover — soft says, the Lost History of the World’s Smartest Horse; hard says, the Lost History of a Horse and a Man Who Changed the World. I suspect the change was made to attract readers. The text is the same in both versions.
Rating: 4 / 5