I wish I could say this was a great book. It almost gets there. Reading this I added some obscure words to my vocabulary and I could appreciate the skill and dexterity the author displays in telling the story set during the American Civil War. I also didn't add lots of words to my vocab since I preferred to read the novel rather than repeatedly going to the dictionary. End of very small silly rant. Oh, a familiarity with horse anatomy will help too.

The young boy Robey Childs that we meet at the beginning of this tale is sent by his mother Hettie to retrieve his father from war once she knows of the death of Thomas Jackson. The boy, 14 years of age, goes out from the hollow to a world he has never seen. The story is a powerful one with a variety of interesting and mostly unsavory characters. The story is not really about a "Coal Black Horse" ... It is about the timeless horrors of war and the timeless inhumanity of man.

As an aside, many years ago I visited the building and I saw the bed where TJ Jackson died, after being accidentally shot by his own soldiers. To Hettie Childs, the death of Jackson in May 1863 meant the mistake of war was evident and the war was lost and to be done with. The battle of Gettysburg would come less than 2 months later. Robey is told he must find his father and bring him home before that. Hettie, you see, has a gift of sight and magically knew that Jackson had just died and something bad was gonna happen in two months.

Overall I'd say this was a very good read on a par with great Civil War fiction like Cold Mountain. There is some graphic, ugly violence in here. There is also lyricical poetic imagery that lovers of such might not want to miss.

"He let float in the dark air his free hand and then raised it up and reached to the sky where his fingers enfolded a flickering red star. The star was warm in his hand and beat with the pulse of a frog or a songbird held in your palm. He caressed the star and let it ride in his palm and then he carried the star to his mouth where it tasted like sugar before he swallowed it."

Recommended ( )

Gripping come-to-age story about a young boy who goes to find his Father during the Civil War and all that he finds along the way. ( )

Depictions of after battle scenes were gruesome, but I supposed realistic and I found myself thinking about the things they didn't teach us about the civil war in school. Interesting book, but other than the scenes of the boy with his father, I plodded my way through. ( )

Depictions of after battle scenes were gruesome, but I supposed realistic and I found myself thinking about the things they didn't teach us about the civil war in school. Interesting book, but other than the scenes of the boy with his father, I plodded my way through. ( )

I heard so many good things about this book, but I must say that I was disappointed. I am not a fan of animal stories, but since this was one of the Cincinnati Public Library's "On the Same Page" selections, I expected more. I felt that there was very little development of the main character, a 14 year old boy who sets out to find his soldier father amid the horrors of the American Civil War. And the horse .....I thought this animal would be significant throughout the story, but no, he seemed to play only a minor role. I felt no attachment to the horse, no attachment to the boy, no attachment to the mother who sent her only child out on this questionable and dangerous search mission. I felt that the author used this "coming of age" outline only to talk about the horrors of the Civil War. ( )