The Island Stallion (Black Stallion)

I started a Black Stallion re-read several years ago, and though I've been buying the books as I come across them, I've failed to keep up with my re-read. Probably because I knew that this was next in line, and I never liked the Island books as well as the ones about the Black. My memory served me

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well- this is a clunky, painful book. The two human characters are dorky beyond all belief, and the horses are either angels or demons. The plot about the Conquistadores is also clunky. Clunky, clunky, clunky. And yet... I read the whole thing again.

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The isolated horses brought to a mysterious island by the Spanish exist unknown to the people on the mainland, who occasionally round-up their degenerate descendants living along the shore. Discovered by a young boy inspired by a visionary remembrance of tales of the horses, and perhaps a

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premonitory dream, discovers the secret valley sheltering the herd, which is in the midst of a succession crisis.
Mostly for mid to older teens, because of the equine violence.

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This is the story of a boy who finds his dream horse on a desert island supposedly devoid of most life. But the stallion is wild, untamed, and has never seen a human before. What can happen to bring the two of them together?

Good solid tale, and not too juvenile for an adult read.

A fantasy set on a supposed desert island in the Carribean. Steve Duncan and his local resident friend Pitch go to Azul Island to look at the wild horses and maybe explore for traces of the Spanish Conquistadores. They encounter a hidden fortress lost for 350 years. In the interior of the island

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they find a beautiful valley where a band of Spanish horses have survived and Steve becomes attached to the chestnut stallion he names Flame. There are rival stallions, but the fight scenes are not very realistic (it's unlikely that the stallions would fight to the death). But it's hard to complain about that when so much of the story is fantastical and unlikely. Still, as a children's book focusing on the boy who loves horses it's exactly right.

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