Simple rhythmic sentences present the first year in the life of two fawns. Never "written down", the text is suitable both to readers-aloud and to first-readers, for it combines poetic content with direct and uncomplicated words and word pictures.

Baby animals have a charm that is virtually irresistible—to children as well as to adults. Dash and Dart have the helpless fuzzy appeal plus all the independence of the very young.

The illustrations present the grandeur of our southwestern mountains, and show the world as vast and wonderful to the eyes of small new creatures in it.

In the fern bed

Is a baby,

A baby deer,

The color of a rusty nail

Spotted with white,

A little rusty-colored fawn

Lying in the green ferns.

The little fawn is very new.

He has just come.

He has just been born

This early morning.

From the dust jacket