National Velvet (1935), by Enid Bagnold, was made famous by the 1944 movie starring Elizabeth Taylor. It is a story about a fourteen-year-old girl named Velvet Brown who trains a horse for the top steeplechase competition, the Grand National, and wins against all odds.

A favorite American horse story is My Friend Flicka (1941), by Mary O'Hara. It is about a Wyoming boy, his special relationship with a filly, and the complex marriage of his parents. The book was so popular that it was made into a television series in the 1950s.

The original story of Bambi (1926), by Felix Salten, gives a serious message about the cycle of life and nature's law as told through the viewpoint of the forest animals.

Probably the best-known animal autobiography following Black Beauty is the novel Beautiful Joe (1893), by Margaret Marshall Saunders. It depicts the true story...