King of the Wind tells a fictionalized version of the life of the Godolphin Arabian, a horse whose bloodline runs through a huge number of race horses right down to modern day. Both Secretariat and Man O'War came from his line, if that means anything to you.
In this book, a stable boy named Agba raises an orphaned Arabian colt he calls Sham in the stables of a capricious sultan. Sham is faster than any other horse in the stables, leading Agba to nickname him King of the Wind.
The sultan decides to send some stallions to King Louis XV of France as a gift. He chooses Sham as one of the gift stallions, and Agba gets to be one of the stable boys who accompany the horses. They arrive in France looking terrible after the long voyage, and King Louis XV has Sham used as a cart horse. One thing leads to another, with Sham being sold from one owner to the next, used for menial jobs and never valued for the race horse he ought to be.
Agba manages to stay with Sham through all the changes of ownership, and acquires a cat friend called Greymalkin along the way. Agba is mute, and horses and cats don't talk, so the story gets told without loads and loads of dialog -- and it works beautifully. Eventually, Sham gets sold to the Earl of Godolphin, and finally is recognized for the valuable horse he originally was. Now, the real history of this horse, known as the Godolphin Arabian, is not quite so complicated or so fraught with misery, but most of what Henry adds is there to emphasize the theme of a person or a horse's true worth sometimes being hidden or unrecognized.
Gotta say, I suspect that much younger me probably read the whole book once or twice, but reread the first third over and over and over, when things were all going really well and both Agba and Sham were happy and valued, and that's why I remembered that part, but had forgotten the rest. And I did still like that part best :-)
If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some depictions of cruelty to horses, mentions of a sultan having people beheaded, and a sequence involving jail. Nothing too grisly or horrible, but might be hard on readers younger than 8 or 9.
This has been my 30th book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list.
I'm pretty sure I read this as a kid too. I know I read her book "Justin Morgan Had A Horse."
ReplyDeleteDebra, I loved that one!
DeleteYou know, I also had the same impression from my childhood experience of this book — I totally forgot that a large part of the story takes place in Europe!
ReplyDeleteThis book is on my list for Classics Club because of that vague-but-happy childhood memory, actually.
You've probably already read it, but "Misty of Chincoteague" is another good horse book from Marguerite Henry.
Looloolooweez, so funny that we both thought that! I hope you enjoy this one when you get to it :-) I definitely read all four of the Misty books as a kid, and nearly all of Henry's other books, too. I actually reread Misty after rereading this one! Just haven't managed to review it yet.
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