Smart Ass

September 24, 2018
In this winning tale, Winslow (Over My Head), a City College of New York professor emerita of earth sciences, recounts facing her midlife crisis by purchasing, rather than the typical sports car or boat, a donkey—and not the docile companion she expected. When she arrives at an upstate New York farm to meet Caleb, the initially placid animal soon tries to show Winslow who the real boss is in their relationship. Trainers attempt to persuade Winslow to take a firmer hand, but it takes a terrifying physical interaction with Caleb to underscore the importance of doing so. Seriously contemplating selling him, Winslow instead sends Caleb to a “boot camp” training program. While he’s there, Winslow realizes, during an intensely uncomfortable faculty meeting, that she’s acting the way Caleb does when scared —“I had feinted and dodged to cover my fears”—and gathers the courage to speak up against shortsighted college administrators. In an amusing coda, although Caleb goes on to become a prize-winning show animal at county fairs, the stubborn animal continues to make clear that, while he may be trained, he’s far from broken. This unusual, engaging story of a woman and her donkey will undoubtedly win many hearts.

November 1, 2018
College professor Winslow relays the story of a childhood dream come to fruition when in midlife she adopts a donkey. Not just any donkey, but Caleb, who is a large (700 lbs.), white, Andalusian donkey with especially tall ears, descended from donkeys bred for the aristocracy. However, not everything goes smoothly, as both Caleb and Winslow struggle to build trust. Winslow is frank and unflinching in relating her sometimes rocky relationships with Caleb and the many people she encounters along their journey, including the Bridgman family, who run a stable and donkey-training program, and the staff at the Silver Rock Farm, where Caleb is also boarded and trained. Winslow's writing is at times laugh-out-loud funny, including her recollections of riding Caleb through what she thought was an abandoned psychiatric center and competing in a dressage competition. It is also poignant as she struggles with how best to train with Caleb while maintaining a challenging work-life balance. A moving and humorous account of what a woman learned about herself as she trained a donkey.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)