Donkey Derby

Animal Ark Pets (UK Order) #13

by Lucy Daniels

Lightning, the fastest donkey in Welford, has just had a foal and can't race at the Welford Spring Fair. But Mandy has an idea. Part of the "Animal Ark" series, this book features animal stories for younger readers.

Genres: Animals, Childrens

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 21, 1999

About the author

Lucy Daniels is the collective name for the writing team that created the bestselling children's book series Animal Ark, many of the books are also published under the name of the series creator, Ben M. Baglio.

Reviews

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Donkeys are lovely animals, and there are just not enough books about them. That being said, this book is a bit strange, even for Animal Ark Pets. It's about an annual donkey race for a horse rescue. It seemed odd because there were suddenly so many kids with donkeys in the area. It's a relaxing, but predictable read.

This was written by Wendy Douthwaite. I don't remember her writing any other Animal Ark book. At least she seemed to read some of the previous books in the series. The illustrations were by Paul Howard, who did all of the Animal Ark Pets books. He does a pretty good job here, especially with making the donkeys seem fuzzy. I also enjoy his dogs.

Paul and his pony Paddy from Pony Parade show up. Mrs. McFarlane from the post office is here, and so is Mrs Ponsonby and her ever-present Pekeingese, Pandora. Who isn't here is Simon, Animal Ark's veterinary nurse. He finally gets a vacation.

I think this was one of the dozen or so Animal Ark Pets books that weren't published in America. Perhaps the American publisher, Scholastic, found the book to be too English. Or maybe they thought donkey books wouldn't sell in America. The first book in the Animal Ark Universe that Scholastic passed on was book 12, Donkey On the Doorstep.

[Sammy]

I was completely obsessed with this series of books when I was a child and my aim was to read every single book. They are a really good children's series.

[Taylor Troncin]

Loved this series when I was younger. Still a huge animal lover and would like to read the rest of this series!

[Zoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

5/10.