Rosalind and the Little Deer
First published in Sweden in 1924 and now available in English, this picture book features a simple but exciting story. A girl named Rosalind sleeps under a linden tree near her friend, a little deer. Frightened by a hunter, it runs away and encounters the king, who decides to keep it in a golden cage. The sorrowful deer refuses to eat until Rosalind comes, and once she arrives, she refuses to leave without her friend. The king locks them both up in the cage, but the hunter frees them. In the happy ending, Rosalind and her deer dance around the linden tree to the music of his horn. While kids will relate to the story of a child rescuing her animal friend, a summary of the plot does not entirely explain the book’s charm, which has more to do with the combination of sweetness, gravity, and grace in both the text and the illustrations. Children beguiled by Beskow’s Princess Sylvie (1934, 2011) will want to make Rosalind’s acquaintance. Preschool-Grade 2. --Carolyn Phelan