THE TALE OF TWO FAWNS

A girl helps care for two fawns that find their way into the family’s yard in Scott’sillustrated memoir for children.

The young author was 6 years old in 2020 when Covid-19 hit her hometown of Mount Juliet, Tennessee. One day, her grandmother, known as Babi, spotted something out the window and called Scott and her mom over: “When I saw what Babi was showing us, it was like seeing two little shooting stars land right in front of me,” Scott writes. “It was so special! I saw two little wet furry brown creatures.” The creatures were fawns who’d been abandoned by their mother. The author’s parents first made sure that the mother wasn’t returning, then made phone calls to find a wildlife rehabilitator. The pandemic made it impossible to reach one of these rehabilitators, so the family researched how to care for the fawns themselves; Scott named them Amy and Andrew, helped feed them, and played with them. The fawns grew bigger, and finally, after two months, a wildlife rehabilitator called. The specialists weaned the fawns off human contact before releasing them into the wild. Scott was heartbroken, but knew that the family had done the right thing. The book concludes with tips on caring for wildlife responsibly and a series of photographs of the author with the fawns. Each chapter begins with a small, whimsical watercolor illustration by Karabach, which acts as a welcome lead-in to the text that follows. Scott organizes the story into digestible chapters, and each one tells a crucial part of the tale in just a few pages. The book’s balance of narrative, emotion, and educational information is well-executed. The story is engaging throughout, and the account of the joy and sadness felt by the author and her family is expressive and earnest. For example, when the fawns were taken away, Scott writes, “Mom stayed home because she could not watch the fawns go. She told us later that she sat at our piano and played Beethoven for forty minutes nonstop, crying.”

An endearing lesson in love, responsibility, and kindness.