The Lil Grey Donkey
By Carolyn Williams
Illustrated by L.E.Stevens
Reviewed by Michelle Shaw
Published by Ghostmountain Publishing
$20 ISBN 978-1-9994737-1-6
This is a beautiful story about a small grey donkey “with big brown eyes” who is injured in a fight with a cougar while guarding some sheep with her friend, the Llama. But rest assured, there’s a happy ending!
She subsequently finds her forever home with the author where she takes “her place in the herd, becoming a buddy for the foals and … loved by all”.
The Lil Grey Donkey is so loved in fact that she appears on the Christmas cards “all dressed up with bows and a Santa cap on”. She becomes part of the community and even goes to town to greet the hospital patients before they go home.
Using simple language and cartoon-like drawings that ooze personality, I think the book is ideal for drawing the young reader in without feeling intimidating. And the delightful picture of the Lil Grey Donkey on the front cover will captivate young readers before they even open the book!
Carolyn Williams describes herself as “a transplanted Englishwoman living life (and loving it) in the wilds of the great Canadian prairies surrounded by the two great passions of her life – her horses and her dogs.”
Illustrator L.E.Stevens, who also illustrated The Happy Horse, lives on the outskirts of metropolitan Delta, Ohio with his wife and a variety of dogs, cats and horses. When not otherwise occupied in the barn or the shop, he splits his time doodling up cartoons and trying to create fine art western drawings.
