Classic Review: ANIMAL FARM and a walk down memory lane

I've long wanted to reread Animal Farm by George Orwell since the first time I read it I was in junior high. When I selected Animal Farm as a book to satisfy one my seasonal Goodreads challenges I had no idea what a blast from the past it would bring with it.

I was twelve and in 7th grade in the year 1970. My family had just moved to Corvallis from Africa, where my parents were missionaries. We'd just moved to town and were living in temporary housing until a permanent abode could be found. I didn't have many friends and pretty much just hung out with my older sister, who was in 9th grade that year. My class was a combined English/Social Studies class and we had the same teacher for those two periods, Mrs. Block. I remember really liking her.

I have funny memories of time spent in that classroom. For example, we were expected to journal every day for 5 or 10 minutes. I decided to spend my time writing a novel about a kid who gets trapped in a house in Kansas City, Kansas (not Missouri) due to a tornado. Odd choice, since I've never lived in a place where tornadoes are a problem. That was my first and last novel writing experience. I also recall working on a class project to act out Shakespeare's Hamlet. My scene had something to do with Ophelia drowning. Cheery memory. I remember not liking my handwriting and spending some open moments in class working on improving my signature. 

And I remember reading Animal Farm. Unfortunately I do not recall any of the discussion. Did we talk about the authoritarianism? The similarities between the story and the Russian revolution? How one source of power will overthrow a government and then become like or worse than the government it overthrew? Did we talk about the implications of the slogan "All animals are equal, some animals are more equal than others" in light of the civil rights movement? I hope we did. 

It is hard to read Animal Farm in 2026 and not think about what is happening today in politics. Do none of the republicans in power look at what kinds of things they are creating or developing and wonder if maybe what they are doing isn't just as bad or worse than what they are undoing? (Like the Constitution?) There are rules set up in the beginning on Animal Farm, then overtime those rules are tweaked to favor the pigs. Hmm. Sound like what is being done for billionaires today? And then the animals are accused of having bad memories when they protest about the rules being broken. They start to question their own memories. It is so hard to know what the truth is today when one has to contend with a lying President and AI generated memes. It is frightening how prescient Animal Farm still is today.

When Animal Farm was published, right after WWII ended, the book's title was Animal Farm: A Fairy Story. There are great debates online if it would have been better to call it a fable instead of a fairy story. Either way, Animal Farm uses a simplistic, mythical, and allegorical framework similar to all fables/fairy stories to address complex political themes. Unfortunately in Animal Farm, and in life, happily-ever-after endings are not to be.

The version of the book I listened to renamed the title, Animal Farm: A Cautionary Tale which leaves little room for guessing what the book is about. 

But thinking about this title, it made me wish that all students in grade seven would once again read this book in class but this time I'd hope the class discussion would be meaningful, pointed, and memorable. Starting with this question -- Why do we need to be cautious? And follow up with -- Let's really examine what the book is saying and apply it to our lives today.

Time for a reread? Let me recommend this audiobook format. This short novella only took about three hours of listening time.

5 stars.

-Anne