Ruby the Christmas Donkey

by Mirabel Cecil, Christina Gascoigne (Illustrator)

The donkeys who give rides to children at the beach learn important lessons of empathy, sharing, and cooperation when they try to help the aging Ruby, whose winter coat has become too thin for her to survive alone. Original.

Genres: Christmas

32 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

Reviews

[Hilary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a beautifully illustrated story, wonderful animal illustrations and snowy scenes in a very nice style. I really liked the idea of the story too, an elderly donkey who is wintering out is made a coat by the other animals wintering in the field. There are some wonderful scenes of the animals collecting materials and weaving. The end of the story is that Ruby's beautiful coat attracts some children who are looking for a donkey to star in their nativity play which makes this a nice Christmas story.

The downsides for me were that the scene of Ruby, old and crying in the snow with her tears freezing as they fell was a little too heartbreaking especially as in the end the children use her for the nativity and presumably put her back in her field. Had this story ended with someone finding a place where Ruby could atleast get out of the snow but preferably find a place to live with a stable and someone to look after her I would have felt a great deal happier about the ending Also the mention of how the children would feed the donkeys on crusts was irresponsible to put into a children's book as this processed food high in salt and sugar and refined carbohydrates shouldn't be fed horses or donkeys and is bad for them. Without these problems this could have been a 4 or even 5 star read for me.

[Diane in Australia · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the books in my daughter's Christmas collection.

5 Stars = For sentimental reasons.