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PICTURE BOOKS
George, Kallie

The Secret Fawn

40 pp. | Tundra | February, 2021 | Trade ISBN 978-0-7352-6516-5 $18.99 | Ebook ISBN 978-0-7352-6517-2 $10.99
(2) K-3 Illustrated by Elly MacKay. Her family sees a deer while hanging out laundry in a translucent dawn, but the pigtailed protagonist of this spare picture book misses it because "I was getting dressed all by myself." It's not the first time she's felt out of step with her family--too short to pick apples, too young to stay up late to see shooting stars--so she heads out alone later that still-misty morning with a sugar cube in hope of finding the deer. At first her search is fruitless, revealing only a bird and the neighbor's dog, but once she settles quietly in the wet grass, her patience is rewarded--not by the deer, but by its fawn. The magic of this solitary moment is framed and enlarged by the sfumato technique of MacKay's glowing illustrations ("using ink, paper, and light"), which give the illusion of light emerging from a source just out of sight or, conversely, pouring gloriously off the page. Cut paper adds definition; salt stippling creates the impression of apple blossoms; the whole becomes a world set apart from the ordinary. The protagonist, too, is out of the ordinary: returning home, she keeps her encounter with the fawn secret, her rich inner life bringing its own rewards.
Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2021

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