ALA Booklist (Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 CST 2019)

One day, Zoe and her father go to feed the horses and take photographs of the new foal. Across the yard, Zoe spots something: a fawn sleeping under the aspen tree. The mother is nowhere to be found, and this causes Zoe some concern. So she and her father set off to look for her. They encounter other creatures on their journey but not the fawn's mother. Flett's distinctive collages capture the quiet stillness of the woods and are a perfect complement to the spare, poetic text. Artfully used white space surrounds a crisp, muted palette of deep greens, browns, and teals. Blocks of solid color are balanced with layers of texture that invite the reader to linger on the pages, like Zoe does with the woodland creatures. Young readers will find themselves murmuring along with the gentle refrain, "Is that [animal] the fawn's mother?" The inclusion of Syilx names for the birds and animals Zoe sees makes this an important addition to the small but growing corpus of First Nations children's literature.

Kirkus Reviews

While checking on their new foal, Zoe and her father discover a fawn curled up in a thicket without its mother.As the two set out to find the doe, Zoe spies many woodland animals and asks her father if each one—a flicker, a rabbit, a rainbow trout—is the fawn's mother. Dad patiently tells Zoe that none are, and they keep walking. From time to time Dad takes a picture of some of the animals seen with his camera. As they go along, readers learn many new syilx (Okanagan) animal words, each printed in a rust-red type that matches Zoe's boots and followed by the English word in parentheses. After circling back to check on their new foal and its mother, Zoe and Dad are greeted with a pleasant surprise. Jameson (Secwepémc-syilx) has crafted a quiet tale of father-daughter togetherness using simple vocabulary, a good use of repetition, and a gentle storytelling tone. Flett's (Cree-Métis) earth-toned illustrations neatly complement the author's style of writing, her mixed media rendering young Zoe and her father with black hair and brown skin and the animals they see with naturalistic verve; stylized greenery establishes the natural setting. It will be clear to readers unfamiliar with syilx that the language is a complex one; they will, perhaps, be spurred to find audio pronunciations on the internet after sharing the book with a loved one. A lovely father-daughter idyll. (Picture book. 3-6)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Little Zoe is helping her father care for their horses when she spots a fawn sheltering in an aspen grove. With the mother nowhere in sight, father and daughter embark on a search for her. Debuting author Jameson portrays Zoe as an earnest and concerned seeker, carefully considering possible mother candidates with her father as different animals appear in their path. The quest-rendered in lyrical repetition that ends happily, back among the aspens-showcases serenely spare, graphically inventive images by Flett (A Day with Yayah). Resembling cut paper, the ground is rendered as an array of tiny forest green ovals, and a scarflike rainbow trout, a study in pink and gray, leaps from a creek rendered as three teal bands. The story also includes translations by Richard Armstrong for the names of the animals that Zoe and her dad encounter in syilx, the endangered language of the Okanagan Nation. But the complex diacritical markings will be unfamiliar to many readers, and there is no pronunciation glossary or even an explanation about the language and the people working hard to keep it alive. Those who are intrigued and want to learn more will have to go on a search of their own. Ages 3-5. (Feb.)

School Library Journal (Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2019)

Toddler-PreS A young girl and her father are out feeding their horses when they discover a fawn under a tree. They set off to find the fawn's mother, encountering other woodland animals along the way. Jameson is a debut Native author from the Okanagan Nation, and the book includes Okanagan words for the animal names in addition to the English names. Fleet's illustrations use a lot of white space and create the setting through a few pieces of shrubbery and spare images of flora and fauna. The dialogue in follows a pattern. The child asks about the different animals and then repeats that they "are not the fawn's mother," which helps emphasize the new words in the text. VERDICT A fun informational title with themes of family, learning, and exploring the wondrous natural world. Deanna Smith, Pender County Public Library, NC