Call of the Burro takes place twelve years after A Burro’s Tale and is the second book in the trilogy. As in A Burro’s Tale, Call of the Burro is a magical mixture of fact and fiction that whisks the reader away to a simpler time long, long ago, where burros were at the center of commerce. Burros were used for travel, plowing fields, pulling carts, or hauling goods to and from the markets. Raphael’s family business is renting out their burros to the townsfolk who do not have a burro of their own, and he and his family have a beautiful, loving relationship with their family of burros.

Call of the Burro continues in Old Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the surrounding valleys. Jerusalem, for the purposes of this story, has been transformed into Old Santa Fe, and the story has a warm Hispanic blanket wrapped around it. Raphael and his family continue to enjoy their growing friendship with the Holy Family. Joseph, Maria, and Jesus have become more like family than mere neighbors in need of a burro to rent.

Woven within Call of the Burro is another critical event in the life of Joseph, Maria, and Jesus, and Pedro is once again placed in a position to come to the crucial aid of the Holy Family. In addition, a new generation of cute little youngsters have joined the family of burros, bringing with them some exciting adventures of their own.

If you love animals the way I do, you will no doubt be swept away into the caring relationship between Raphael’s family and their family of burros. Their love and respect of their burros may (hopefully) even oftentimes blur the thin line between humans and burros.