The Story of a Donkey

The year is 1860. A donkey in the French countryside begins to dictate his memoirs to a patient goat. His name is Cadichon, and he is, by his own account, the most intelligent, most philosophically minded, and most wrongly underestimated donkey in all of France. What follows is an adventure equal parts comic and profound. Cadichon escapes a cruel mistress, passes through a series of masters, some generous, some miserly, some outright villainous, and responds to each with the wit and judgment of a learned philosopher. He saves children from danger, seeks satisfying revenge on those who have wronged him, and observes human folly with a dry, unrepentant amusement. Yet for all his cleverness, Cadichon remains blind to what truly matters until life humbles him into understanding. This 19th century French children's classic wears its morality lightly, wrapping genuine wisdom about happiness and compassion in the guise of a donkey's autobiography. The result is as irresistibly charming as it is quietly profound, a book that has been making children (and their parents) laugh and think for over a century and a half.