THE OX AND THE DONKEY

Bright, misty lighting gives Koopmans’s (Cinderella, 1999, etc.) delicately modeled crèche scenes a mystical air, nicely suiting Spang’s tale of a bullying ox who is transformed by the Nativity, becoming a loving friend to the donkey, his former victim. Though of the human figures Joseph gets more “face time” in the pictures than either Mary or the infant, verbally and visually the story focuses on the two animals, whose relationship is defined by body language and subtle but clear facial expressions. After warming baby Jesus with their breath and keeping the flies off, ox and donkey are parted when the holy family departs for Egypt, then joyfully reunited when the donkey makes its own way back. It’s a quiet sort of miracle, accomplished with no outward sign of supernatural agency. (Picture book. 6-9)