January 1, 2020
The motif of an orphaned wild creature taken and raised by humans is a classic trope, here embodied in a realistic story about a baby moose adopted by the hunter who had inadvertently killed the calf's mother. The setting is, matter-of-factly rather than exotically, contemporary Inner Mongolia, and the hunter, a kind old man who names the moose Xiao Han, Little Moose. Xiao Han's growing size (and hunger!) provides plenty of gentle slapstick humor as he becomes increasingly too much for the hunter and his reindeer herd; the hunter's encroaching mortality offers an additional emotional layer. Watercolor and charcoal pictures�? some sepia-toned, some delicately colorful�? are plentiful and detailed, with a good variety of picture sizes, from small homey vignettes, several to a page, to double-page spreads showing the magnificence of the (sometimes comical) beast and the breadth of the forest landscape. Roger Sutton
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