BEDA - Day Fifteen

War Horse is a story about, well, a horse that grows up on a farm and then is sold to the army to be used for transportation during the First World War. The horse, named Joey, encounters many different people during his journeys and they all come to care about him in different ways. Through all the hardship that Joey endures he never gives up and continues to dream of the day that might be reunited with his original owner Albert.

I first read War Horse in February, I spent the day lying on my parents couch and had it read before I went to bed that night. It is an easy read, being a children’s book, but it was very captivating. I love the way that the story is narrated by Joey, and through the whole book I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him and also to cheer him on through all the difficult events. Joey related to each human character differently, and it is neat to watch him become attached to each person. He also has relationships with the other horses in the story, most notably with one of the other war horses name Topthorn. I love the emotion that is conveyed through Joey, it is entirely relatable and it is very easy to get attached to Joey. I think that it is a very good picture of what happens in war without getting becoming overly violent; this story is a good way to introduce kids to the history of war.

Last night I watched War Horse the movie. I think that it was very well done, but it is different from the book. The writers were able to follow the story in the book very closely and there were only a couple of changes to plot that I noticed. Unfortunately, the one thing that sort of bothered me was that instead of getting the story from the perspective of Joey the horse it is focused more around the people that he comes in contact with. The plot still follows Joey’s journey, but the story seem to be more from the viewpoint of the humans and the common thread that they have is the horse.  I loved the look of the movie, it was beautifully filmed and the acting was also great. The other thing that I really loved was the music, it set the mood perfectly, and it went from carefree sounding too downtrodden during the war scenes. However, I wouldn’t call this a kid’s movie. There are some scenes that would be to disturbing for children.

I really enjoyed both the book and the movie War Horse, but if I had to choose to recommend just one of them I would pick the book. I really missed the narration by the horse, because it was such an interesting perspective. I wish that they hadn’t focus on the people in the story as much and could have explored Joey’s journey more, although the people are very important to the plot I feel like they became more important than Joey. That said, I really did enjoy the movie, but I don’t think that I would have enjoyed it as much if I hadn’t read the book first.