Missing You

When a recently widowed father and his two young children find an injured fawn by the side of the road and take it home, its silent, patient presence offers companionship and comfort. Lion, as they name the fawn, lets Thomas bathe and dress the fawn, and it offers intuitive consolation to Thomas’s older sister Lara, who misses their mother. During Grandma’s anticipated visit, she insists that Lion sleep outside in the barn. Through her love for her family, paired with their shared sense of loss, Grandma opens up to Lion, even if she still insists the deer stay out of doors. But when she senses that Lion has become restless living beyond the forest, she encourages it to follow its instincts. Soft watercolor panels in forest colors by Garibeli stay sweet and approachable without tipping over into the saccharine. Imaginative sequences between Lara and Thomas—which involve piloting make-believe spaceships and constructing a giant cardboard T. rex—add a youthful feel to the overarching somber tone, and the family’s tears and laughter feel genuine in this tender interpretation of a wild pet story that tackles grief and loss, and the path toward healing. Human characters cue as white. Ages 8–12. (Apr.)