** spoiler alert ** {Please read this first: Okay, I like my original review. It shares my opinion in what I thought was a humorous way. Perhaps if some of you knew me personally, you would find it more funny and actually understand what I am trying to say. However, I have decided to add a "less emotional" review at the end of the original. So if you would like to find fault with the first one, please continue to read the second. If after that, you would like to share a comment that entails of in it's entirety, "You are dumb and you don't know what you are talking about." Just know you will be completely ignored unless you can go beyond that and tell me why using your own intellect, and a reference to what occurred in the the book, to make your point. And actually to be completely honest I will probably be ignoring comments in general because they have been stressing me out...sorry.}

{I've had a slight change of heart. After thinking it over, I have decided to bump my rating up one star. Shocking you say? Well I still concur with everything written below (except the one star rating explanation), I just realized that I broke my own rule shall we say (I can no longer stand my own hypocrisy). One star, for me, actually most often means, that I totally hated the book, got NOTHING out of it, and in most cases it made me quite angry--There is no zero star rating after all. So, because this book actually taught me something valuable, I am giving it the distinction of two stars. Nobel of me, yes. Do I still loathe this book? You betcha.}

{I've decided to preface this review because I keep getting comments from people telling me that I don't know what this book is about. I do in fact. It is a allegory about the Soviet Union. The reason why I talk about America is because I am applying the book to myself. What is the point of reading a book like this if you can't apply it to yourself in some way and make changes for the better? Why else make high school students read this? And I rated it one star because I did not enjoy reading this book. That is how I rate books on this site. Perhaps this is very unfair of me because I did get a lot of good out of this book. But I'm not changing the rating now. Sorry. This is really one of my least favorite books on the planet.}

What surprises me most, in glancing at the other reviews, is that the people who didn't like the book, didn't like it because it was boring. I didn't like it because it was creepy! Animals taking over like that is frightening to me. Perhaps it is because I have seen the creepy cartoon. (My husband actually bought the cartoon to watch it more than once. Maybe I will go into the movie cabinet now and throw it away! ;)

But seriously. I think everyone should read it once, understand the symbolism, learn from it, and appreciate the good things about America. Just know you may not enjoy it. After that the lesson should be remembered, but the creepy story forgotten. What bugs me most about the story is Boxer. I mean he is a great guy (I mean horse). He is a hard worker, gentle, giving, and valuable to society because he is capable of doing great things. And what does he get for it?? Those of you who have read the story know. How aggravating is that?!?!? I have a hard time respecting him. He was duped! Year after year he gives service to these evil leaders and gets nothing for it. Not that we should all be selfish, but we need to look for good leadership. Boxer supports these bad leaders! He thinks they're wonderful until they betray him. Use your head. I find it extremely aggravating that all of his talents are wasted on undeserving leaders who don't care about him at all. He counted on the government to take care of him and they didn't care about him at all.

Now, I hope that every one knows, that even though America is not perfect and has flawed leadership sometimes, that I love America. It has the most potential to do good when compared to other forms of government, all things considered. But I would hope that I would not be duped by politicians promising me the moon, and then taking my hard work and money and using it selfishly for themselves. And I would hope that I would not continue voting for people like that year after year after year. Do not be duped America! Use your heads. If they are not promoting and DOING good things, don't vote for them. I think that is the most important lesson this book taught me. And it also taught me not to depend on government to take care of my problems. The animals depend on their government for everything, therefore the government as all the power, and then the power is abused. Take charge of your own life! Help should be provided by government if truly needed as a TEMPORARY safety net. However, there is no way that a government can provide everything for everyone without being socialistic and having too much power and then taking away everyone's freedom of choice.

A slightly more intellectual review:

Boxer is a blind follower of a government who made false promises to him. He wholeheartedly believes in them and what they say they stand for. He works hard his whole life on a windmill (and has little choice but to do so), that turns out to be a failed project because his current leaders lied to him and care nothing for the windmill. They just use it to suppress him. Boxer gave away his liberty by working so hard for them, and following their increasingly suppressive laws. He didn’t fight for his rights. He didn’t know that he had any at all. Instead of giving him the lovely retirement as promised in a sunny, flowering field, they ship him to the glue factory as a reward and early death for all of his hard work.
Okay once a person reads this and realizes that it is an allegory about Russia, one can draw some conclusions of his own. Being a young American citizen when I read this I could have said, “Well crappy to be all those poor Russians…” Or I could have applied it to myself with logical parallels, as I tried to do.
So what I came up with was this:
Boxer is a blind follower and it leads to his own ruin. I don’t have any piggy overlords like the ones in the book. I do have senators, judges, house members, and presidents. Now, politicians often make false promises like Boxers leaders made to him. Therefore I think it is wise to choose good leaders, and use my own intellect to make the best choices possible. I also want to keep my liberty intact as much as possible by not working hard for poor government and giving away all of my money to them. So I want to use my brain and not vote for leaders who take away my liberty. By voting for leaders who want make suppressive laws, who want more of my money, and who want suppressive social reforms, I am giving them my liberty and I don’t want to do that. So all I am saying is that I believe we should all use our heads and make wise decisions in government because we have rights and we know we have them.
Now I may not have explained this part as clearly, but I do believe America is great and has the greatest potential for long lasting good. Let’s take a look at Snowball here. He had a great idea: unite the animals, overthrow the evil human overlords, and build a windmill to promote the animal’s self reliance. The problem was the set up. Snowball got to have all the ideas. Snowball appointed himself leader. Snowball treated the other animals as lesser beings because of their lesser intellect. But Snowball forgot he could be murdered. And he was. He was murdered by his friends. Now murderers are the new leaders, with no opposition of any kind, and no end in sight. Instead of blindly following Snowball the barnyard now blindly follows them. The murderers now cleverly and slowly take away all of the barnyard’s freedom. They persuade, they use propaganda, they lie. Their laws become increasingly suppressive and step by step the animals have lost basic freedom. They have secretly trained vicious dogs to scare the barnyard away from rebellion. They will maintain their power for as long as they live. Pigs live quite long I think if you let them. Now instead of having one evil human leader, the barnyard has a few evil human-like pigs as leaders. The few dictating the masses.
In America, we the barnyard, take part in choosing our leaders and those leaders serve for limited terms and are then put up for vote again. We have rights we should want to fight for, and participation in that government helps us keep those rights. How grateful I am for that. We have checks and balances to help keep the few from dictating the masses. Socialism, the kind Orwell paints in this book, often starts out as a good idea, but it has the potential to go south quickly. This kind of Socialism only works if the leaders are perfect, and if the people are perfect. If you are not allowed to own your own property, and the government owns it and lets you borrow it, you just have to pray that they are going to be fair, and let you keep enough of your farm to eat from. You have to hope that they aren’t going to buy off your neighbor’s loyalty, and give him your share and let you rot. You have to hope that your neighbor won’t steal your portion from you because everyone’s portion is too small because the government who the people gave all their power to, takes too much. Logically the conclusion I draw, is that Socialism is not worth the risk it presents because no one living on this earth is perfect.
Now I know that there are probably other kinds of Socialism with intricate differences that I don’t know about. I’m not really trying to refer to all kinds of Socialism. However from what I have seen in my life, America still has most potential for longest lasting good. I like my freedom. I want to keep it.