Daffy down Donkey (We Love Animals S., #2)

by Jean Ure

Reminiscent of Animal Ark, We Love Animals follows two tween girls, Clara and Jilly as they go about trying to make a difference for the animals they encounter. In the second installment, the girls are horrified when they find a donkey they name Daffodil all alone in a field of rubbish, scrap metal with no shelter and no nearby grass. They desperately want to help so they begin by visiting with food and clearing the field so Daffodil can walk freely.

This book bothered me a lot. I get that they want to help animals and that they're horrified by the situation but they literally know nothing about animals and have no real wish to find out. It's all well and good you're horrified but maybe try some research to find out how you can help before diving right in. Sure it was harder then - 1998 (the publication date) the internet existed but it wasn't widespread all you youngsters, but there was still a place called the library that had books and magazines and videos to help guide you in unfamiliar subjects. And most people had encyclopedia's in their homes anyway.

Before you start feeding a random donkey maybe you should try doing some research to find out what they eat, what they like, what's bad for them, etc. It's like giving a dog chocolate - it's poisonous to them. Plus in 1998 it was still illegal to abuse an animal - the RSPCA was in existence - report the animal owner.

Okay - they do end up trying to report the owner and trying to hire a library book but it takes them so long to come to this conclusion and they'd already been feeding the donkey for weeks by this point - so kind of stupid.

But it's not the only stupid thing. Clara becauses absolutely moronic in this installment. She ignores curfew, skips school and lies to her mother about where she is at least half the time - including when she finds the owner of the donkey by approaching random strangers in a run down street and then accusing them of animal cruelty - yeah I couldn't imagine all the things that could go wrong doing that. I get that this is a tween books and tweens don't always make the best choices but I think there's a line to making bad choices and outright encouraging anarchy. Okay and that was my dramatic comment for the day. But still I think tweens are impressionable and giving them a book where doing everything that happens in this book and saying it's all alright because it's all for the animals seems stupid. It's asking for trouble.

I didn't much like Clara at all for most of this book but this scene takes the cake.

I yelled at him - "Mud! Stop that!" - but he's not used to me being mad at him and I guess he thought it was all part of the game because two minutes later he actually jumped right onto the table and trampled on my math book, scrunching all the pages and even tearing a big hole in one of them. I screamed and walloped him and he went scooting out into the hall with his ears pulled back. "You stupid dog!" I yelled.

Ure, Jean. Daffy Down Donkey (p. 61). Barron's Educational Series. Paperback Edition.

Is she for real? This is the dog you rescued that's been abused and you hit him. How can you go on and on about loving animals and being against animal cruelty and then proceed to hit a dog. She feels bad about it later but I was pretty over this book by that point. It was just ridiculous and outrageous and horrible. I finished it but I don't know if I really want to read the next one. 1 star.