One of the first Christmas stories I ever fell in love with was that of
Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey, the protagonist in one of many
Rankin-Bass Christmas specials. This tender tale takes a leaf out of
Rudolph’s book to tell of a donkey with extra-long ears that earned him
derisive laughter throughout his childhood, only to come in very handy
when his exceptional hearing helped guide him to Bethlehem as he carried
a very pregnant Mary there during a ferocious storm. Years later, I
came upon The Small One, a Disney short that covers similar
territory. Recently, I was happy to stumble upon the book on which the
Disney special was based.
The Small One: A Story for Those Who Like Christmas and Small Donkeys was written by Charles Tazewell, the same author responsible for the Christmas classic The Littlest Angel.
He seems to have had a soft spot for the seemingly insignificant. Based
on the description on the jacket, I gather that a recording of this
story read by Bing Crosby used to be broadcast on the radio regularly at
Christmastime. This particular 1947 edition was illustrated by Franklin
Whitman, with a mix of precise black-and-white drawings and slightly
smudgy-looking color pictures.
The illustrations are nice,
adding to the nostalgic flavor of the tale, but they aren’t the primary
focus. This is less a picture book than a book that happens to have
pictures. Only five drawings take up a full page; most fill less than
half the page. In almost every picture, the titular donkey appears, and
great care is taken to make him look soft and quietly noble. The most
striking of the other characters are Mary and Joseph, who both are
depicted with haloes surrounding their heads.
It’s really all
about the story, however, which wraps around from one page to the next,
not always ending at the conclusion of a paragraph or even a sentence.
Twelve pages in the book contain nothing but text, while nine consist of
about two-thirds text, so it’s pretty wordy. It’s hard to say whether
it was written primarily for children or adults, though the main
character in the story aside from the donkey is a boy, and it is framed
by a priest who is telling the tale to a boy of a similar age.
The
book begins with a mild-mannered priest observing a boy berating a
donkey for being stubborn. This prompts him to come to the creature’s
defense, explaining that the donkey is not simply obstinate but proud,
and Christmastime brings out that sense of pride all the more. He then
goes on to tell his version of the tale of the donkey that bore Mary to
Bethlehem.
In this story, Small One Is an elderly donkey who has
spent most of his life being abused. His current situation is more
pleasant, since a young boy cares for him and treats him with affection,
but the boy’s father considers Small One a burden and sends his son to
town with instructions to sell him to the tanner. The child can’t bear
to deliver the faithful donkey to such a dire fate, so he spends the day
searching for a kind owner who will buy him for the same price. After
several searing disappointments, he meets Joseph, and his fortunes take a
turn for the better at last.
It’s a simple story, but I find it
quite touching. The short, which was the last Disney project overseen
by Don Bluth, expands on the story a bit, mostly by adding songs and
some unsavory characters in the marketplace. In the book, they’re
unpleasant enough, though. Nearly everyone the boy meets is scornful and
obnoxious, and some are just plain cruel. Tazewell sprinkles the
dialogue in sparingly, mostly giving us older-the-shoulder narration
that allows us to see how deeply the boy loves the donkey. Take this,
from early in the story: “What one, among all these, would have the
shrewdness, the sagacity, the divine wisdom to take advantage of a
tremendous bargain and acquire the services of such a treasure of a
donkey for but one single piece of silver?”
I can understand why
this story would have proven so popular on the radio over the years.
Gentle and heart-warming, this donkey’s tale is one that I am glad to
add to my shelf.
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