THE DEER'S ANTLER TREE

Leaving his friends behind, the deer worries he’ll become lonely. At the meadow, two birds build a nest in his antlers; bees construct a hive in them; a spider casts a web among them; and a butterfly and katydid join the group of creatures nestled there. The animals repeatedly save the deer’s life, the bees stinging a hungry wolf and the creatures together distracting a hunter (depicted with light-brown skin and black hair). In the end, they lift the deer into the air to save him from a flood. The story opens with the stately stock phrase “once upon a time,” giving it a timeless feel, and the language is descriptive in spots (“the sky sparkled azure blue and the sun spread its warmth”). But running throughout is a strain of sentimentality, including the element of anthropomorphized animals (smiling, chatting forest creatures). Repeated changes in type size and color are distracting and don’t afford children the opportunity to glean subtext from the story itself. There is occasionally a disconnect between illustrations and tone, such as pictures in which the deer’s eyes may strike some readers as sinister though they mean to present as friendly. While some readers will appreciate the theme of kindness, others may find it unsettling that the deer erases his physical boundaries in order to make friends.

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