I thought you might enjoy a note to you all from my Dad he wrote awhile ago… Have wonderful holidays!
Much love,

Everyone at Hopeful Farm

A Letter to a Fan, by Walter Farley:

“During all the years I’ve been writing the Black Stallion and the Island Stallion books, nothing has given me more happiness than hearing from readers.  I’ll never forget the number of letters I wrote when I was a young reader to anyone who had anything to do with horses, always hopeful that it would lead to having my own horse some day.  And in a way it did.”

“For while I had no horse of my own, I had a dream of one — a dream in which I was young Alec Ramsay, alone on a remote island with a wild black horse.  I put the dream down on paper and later it became a book, The Black Stallion.  Then, many years later, the book became a motion picture, and I’m sure you can imagine how I felt as I watched the film being made.  Excited?  Of course.  It took me back to those days when I knew only the horse of my dreams, and now on the set and screen he was coming to life.”

“My childhood dream also led to my owning horses today, none of them as fast as the Black Stallion but all very much alive.  Some of these horses have played an important part in the books that followed the publication of The Black Stallion — stories about the Black and his colts and fillies, and about my red horse Flame, which you can read about in the Island Stallion books.  All the titles are listed inside each book, and you can find them in your public library or bookstore.  I hope you’ll read those stories you’ve missed, knowing that without a boy’s dream of a wild black horse they never would have been!”

“Thanks so much for writing, and the best of everything to you.”

“Your friend,”

“Walter Farley”