From Publishers Weekly
Using a theme she explored for slightly older children in Step into the Night and Mockingbird Morning, Ryder's child-centered lyric poem identifies the riches to be found on a walk through a field. "There are treasures to see/ hiding all around me," says the unnamed child narrator. "I see more things each day/ as new friends come my way." Beginning and ending with the shy fawn of the title, Ryder's satisfying rhymes identify such sounds and sights as "a lizard who creeps/ past another who sleeps" and "a blur and a whir/ as two hummingbirds race." Narahashi (Who Said Red?) populates her deceptively simple gouache and watercolor paintings with chickadees, ferns, shadowed bark and sleepy woodland flowers. Her delicate renderings create just enough suspense to keep young readers turning pages. A mysterious nose peeks from a hole in the ground and on the succeeding page becomes a pink-faced mole. A "speck in the sky" transforms into a sweeping panorama of "a hawk circl[ing] high." A white butterfly in a plain blue sky lands lightly on the next spread "on a circle of [Queen Anne's] lace." Though never stated explicitly, the book underscores the message that nature is full of beauty, grace and unexpected pleasures. Ages 2-5.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
PreS-Gr 2-Through a simple rhyming text, Ryder encourages readers to explore the world around them as she describes some of the creatures found in many parts of the country. "There's a fawn in the grass,/watching me as I pass./I am silent and slow/as it watches me go./There's a trail on a leaf/and a snail underneath./There are treasures to see/hiding all around me." The fawn begins and ends the cycle; in between are lizards, hummingbirds, a mole, a hawk, and more. Narahashi's gouache-and-watercolor illustrations extend the possibilities for exploration by showing additional life that is not mentioned explicitly. The artist's shifting perspectives from eye level to ground and then looking down from above widens the scope for readers' perceptions and adds to the overall effectiveness of the book. A brief note and photograph at the end reveal the actual fawn that inspired the story. An excellent choice for storytime or general reading aloud.-Ellen A. Greever, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
