Marshall Saunders (1861–1947)

Ugh. The author says they're trying to write another Black Beauty, but what they produced is a sickly-sweet, preachy, over-sentimental, pointless "dog" story. There's no story to it, for one thing - Joe is raised by a mean man and rescued into an animal-loving household...in the first couple chapters. Everything else is random stories of his life. It's told in Joe's voice - and sometimes he can talk to other animals and tell and get stories; sometimes they can communicate only in gestures show more and sniffing, and with little understanding. Again, sometimes he understands long stories told by humans and reacts to them; other times he's completely bewildered by what the humans want, while the reader knows because the humans are telling him over and over what's going on. And repeatedly, the author has characters tell terrible stories of animal mistreatment, while they remind themselves and others not to shock the young woman Joe belongs to - and then they tell her more stories of the same. It's all about preaching to kids that animals should be well taken care of, and never mind making it a good story...so it failed in both intentions and is largely forgotten, unlike Black Beauty. Bleah. show less

I loved this story when I was young. It may be the reason I can not stand to see dogs treated cruelly. It tells the story of Joe who was rescued by the Morris family from an inhumane master. It is based on a true story of a dog in Meaford Ontario. Take it and read it and remember to be kind to your animals.

3.5 stars

Beautiful Joe was a dog (apparently a real dog) who was abused by his owner (along with his mother and siblings, who were all killed), but was rescued by some local kids after Joe’s owner cut off his ears and tail. Joe hit the jackpot with his new family, especially soft-hearted Miss Laura who took good care of Joe and all the other animals the family had. When Miss Laura went off to a relative’s farm for a summer, Joe went with her and learned about the farm animals, as well. show more

The book was told from Beautiful Joe’s point of view. I enjoyed this (mostly), but it did get preachy at times. I completely agree with it all, but even so, it still felt a bit preachy to me. Many of the characters in the story were almost too good to be true, but at the same time, I think the book (originally published in 1893) was trying to teach kids not to be cruel to animals – they have feelings and feel pain, too. Interesting that it is actually a woman who wrote this: Margaret Marshall Saunders. show less

This is a re-read, of course. I think I first read Beautiful Joe well over 50 years ago. My only beef with Beautiful Joe, reading it now as an adult, might be its rather heavy-handed preaching about cruelty to animals and about the need for kindess in general. Consider, for example, this gentle diatribe from a traveler Miss Laura encounters on the train: "Think of the cattle on the western plains. Choked with thirst in summer and starved and frozen in winter. Dehorned and goaded on to trains show more and steamers. Tossed about and wounded and suffering on voyages. Many of them dying and being thrown into the sea. Others landed sick and frightened. Some of them slaughtered on docks and wharves to keep them from dropping dead in their tracks. What kind of food does their flesh make? It's rank poison. Three of my family have died of cancer. I never eat meat." Maybe some of this "preaching" can be explained by the book's publisher, The American Baptist Publication Society. But no matter, really. It's still a good book, even for this old grey-haired geezer. If you like dogs and if you like a good story, then you'll like this book. And if your kids or grandkids should read it and like it, then dig out those old Jim Kjelgaard Big Red books, or Albert Payson Terhune's Sunnybank collie books, or maybe some of Jack O'Brien's Silver Chief books or James Oliver Curwood's Kazan and Baree. They're all still good reads, fifty, sixty or a hundred years later. Marshall Saunders probably still had that "new" book about Black Beauty freshly in mind when this book was written. It's a canine version of BB, really. But derivative doesn't necessarily mean second rate. This book was first rate in 1893 and it still is today. Read it to your kids/grandkids, or give it to them to read themselves. And tell them about your own excitement when you first read it. show less