The new Spanish (Latin American) edition of Norwich native John-Manuel Andriote’s children’s book “Wilhelmina Goes Wandering” (Guillermina se va errante”), based on the true story of a runaway cow in Milford, Connecticut, has been released as a hardcover book.

Andriote, now living in Atlanta, will be reading and signing copies of the book at Milford’s Calf Pen Meadow School on Friday, Oct. 28. The school is featured in the book—because it is one of the locations the “real” Wilhelmina visited regularly during her five months “on the lam” in 2011. In 2014, Calf Pen Meadow School named Andriote as the school’s “favorie author” and officially named their school mascot (a cow) “Wilhelmina.”

A “fable for kids ages 5 to 105,” as Andriote writes in an email, the book is being released in Spanish for National Hispanic Heritage Month. The new edition joins the book’s English, French, and Mandarin translations.

“Wilhelmina’s story proves that ‘sometimes we have to leave our familiar pasture to find our true home,’” Andriote said in a release. “It’s not always safe when we have to step out to find the place we belong, where we are accepted exactly as we are—whatever it might be that makes us ‘different.’”

Wilhelmina finally knows she has found her true home where she is accepted and loved exactly as she is and knows herself to be.

The 42-page book contains 18 original watercolor illustrations by Connecticut-born, Vermont-based artist Katie Runde Sanchez.

Andriote wrote “Wilhelmina Goes Wandering” while he was living in his home state of Connecticut from 2007-2021–before relocating to Atlanta to join his two sisters and other family in Georgia. He is senior writer for Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University.

For information, visit runawaycowbook.com. Andriote loves nothing more than to share Wilhelmina’s story in person and works with individual schools to pre-order books that he can sign on-site the day of his reading. Contact Andriote through the runawaycowbook.com website.

Andriote recently wrote about the book for Psychology Today (“What Does It Mean to Leave a Legacy? Why his kids' book became a serious medical writer's hoped-for legacy": https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/stonewall-strong/202209/what-does-it-mean-leave-legacy.

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