![]() ![]() Many people are familiar with the relatively good film based on the book starring a young Roddy McDowell. If it were not for the language, I could give it a higher rating. The story is actually not a bad one, and Jeremy (who was about ten at the time), to whom I read it aloud (with A LOT of editing!), enjoyed it, although he did get a little upset with the father’s attitude on occasion. However, more than a story of a boy and a horse, the book is really a story about how the relationship between the boy and the horse affects how the father and son come to understand each other better. McLaughlin truly loved his younger son, he is initially presented as gruff, petulant, distant, and cold, probably because he does not understand or appreciate Ken’s dreamy and, probably in his eyes, "not manly enough" disposition. Then the attitude of the father toward Ken was not always the greatest. Also, the scene where the young male horses were gelded (little boys, if you do not know what that means, ask your father little girls, if you do not know, ask your mother) I thought was a little more gruesomely detailed than needed to be. In addition to the bad language, there are numerous references to smoking tobacco and even a few to drinking alcohol. I don’t have it handy in order to give the year of publication." If your child is a horse fan, look for it in the Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. Yet they retained the better language usage and higher level of vocabulary words. RD removed most, if not all, of the profanity to my recollection. I did find a Reader’s Digest condensed version – it is much, much cleaner. But when I re-visited My Friend Flicka as an adult and a Christian, I decided to not have them read it. Another friend sent me the following information: "I usually wanted my girls to read the originals of classic titles, instead of watered down versions. Others have confirmed that there is a "Reader’s Digest Condensed Version" that does eliminate the profanity. ![]() It would be interesting to obtain a copy of the of the cute little book for girls and see if this is the case. However, I had seen a version among those cute little books for girls with the lockets wrapped up with them, and I suspect that it has been edited with much of the offending material removed. One said, "It contained a significant amount of profanity," while another wrote, "It’s been a favorite with my children." Having read the unabridged version, I can attest to the fact that it does contain a lot of profanity and cursing–even the mother, who is normally placid, uses the "d" word on one occasion. Previously, I had read two different views of this book by friends. Ken chooses a half-wild yearling as his horse and works to tame the filly who tries to escape and is severely injured, then Ken gets very sick while seeking to keep the horse from being shot. My Friend Flicka is about a horse and a boy, Ken McLaughlin, who lives with his father, a retired military officer turned rancher and horse breeder, mother, older brother, and two ranch hands on Goose Bar Ranch in Wyoming. National Velvet by Enid Bagnold is a book about a horse and a girl which is fair, though there were some bad language and one disturbing scene. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell is a lovely book about a horse which I highly recommend. I worked in the high school library, and the three books that I noticed were constantly being checked out by the horse living crowd were Black Beauty, National Velvet, and My Friend Flicka. When I was growing up out in rural southern Ohio, many of the girls with whom I went to school had horses, and many who did not have horses still loved them anyway. Lippincot Company republished in 1988 by Perennial Library, a division of Harper and Row Publishers Inc., 10 E. My Friend Flicka (published in 1941 by J. Reading level: probably not for younger children without a great deal of editing independent reading I would say ages 16+ (except for condensed version, which is recommended)įor more information e-mail Mary. Language level: 4 (a lot of profanity and cursing) Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, reprinted in 2005 ![]()
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