When Jon Katz (Dancing Dogs) met Simon, the donkey had been given up for dead. Katz, author of dozens of animal-themed books and a blog from his farm, Bedlam, was the only one the animal control officer thought would take responsibility for the poor beast. Katz and his wife, defying odds, adopted the crippled, emaciated, mangy animal, and Saving Simon--the rescue and the book--began.
"I knew I had to bring him back, heal him, to reaffirm the better parts of being human," Katz writes. A down-on-his-luck farmer had ignored Simon, assuming he'd died in his cramped pen. While Katz was enraged at the farmer, he was also skeptical of judgmental "rescue culture" types. As he dedicated himself to the laborious process of healing Simon, Katz pondered the lessons inherent in the animal-man relationship. What was compassion, and why do some have it and others don't? And why are humans so loving to animals but often not empathetic to other humans?
Katz reviews a variety of legendary donkeys: Jesus's donkey, also a rescue; Sancho Panza's "Dapple" in Don Quixote; and the wise donkeys extolled by the Hebrew mystics. He balances these spiritual and philosophical reflections with the day-to-day antics of Simon and his farm pals (the dogs, cats, chickens, sheep and two other donkeys he joins at the upstate New York farm, and the blind pony and her seeing-eye border collie that came later).
"Simon is a teacher sent to me in the form of a donkey," Katz concludes, crediting the brown-eyed, soft-nosed creature with leading him to a deeper understanding of compassion and righteousness. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, manager, Book Passage, San Francisco