This novel is an amazing novel about Velvet, a 14 year old girl, and a young, green, piebald (a spotted/two colored horse) that she wins. This story is not that exciting at the beginning as it introduces you to Velvet's and her family's personalities and daily life. The book becomes more alive when Velvet hears that a horse is being given away by raffle. Velvet quickly gathers all the money that she has and buys a ticket for the raffle. Amazingly the wining raffle ticket is Velvets' and she wins the piebald. After showing him is a typical/normal show, Velvet realizes he is not meant for those types of shows and decides to go bigger. After seeing how high the piebald can jump, Velvet chooses to train the piebald for the Grand National, the biggest steeplechase in the world. Throughout the whole book there are disappointing parts and parts where you smile all over. This book is like a sister to the classic novel Black Beauty. Overall National Velvet is a book for horse lovers of all ages to read; in fact it is a book everyone should read.

I thought this book was great, but it confused me on which was which character. I love the Pie. I saw the movie first, so I was surprised when the Pie was a piebald (In the movie he is chestnut). This was a great book. All horse/classic lovers should read it.

"National Velvet" is the story of the literaly ugly duckling of the Brown family. Velvet has three older sisters (Edwina, Meredith, and Malvolia) and a younger brother named Donald. her mother, Arminity, swam the English Channel as a young girl, and has the opinion that none of her daughters should be weak characters.Mi Taylor, her father's hired hand becomes Velvet's coach (as his father was to Arminity)when Velvet inherits five horses and then wins a Piebald carthorse in a village raffle.
When Mi and Velvet see how well the Piebald can jump, Velvet decides to enter him in the Grand Nationals. Velvet dresses as a boy(no girls were allowed to compete)and rides in the Nationals.
This book was really good- it showed how a person can do almost anything if they set their mind to it!