Beauty's Babies

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Becky and Bunty are two frolicsome young fawns who were born on a ranch
in western Canada. They try to be good, but their high-spirited natures
repeatedly land them in trouble. Once they accidentally wandered away,
and the rancher had to search a nearby forest for several hours before
he found them. Another time, they jumped the rancher’s house fence,
ate up his vegetable garden, and knocked over a clothesline full of
fresh laundry. Eventually the rancher gives the twin fawns to a young
boy named Billy Olsen who lives just down the road. Bunty and Becky
continue to have misadventures but their new owner, Billy, loves them
and is very patient. As the two fawns slowly grow up, Billy realizes
that someday they must return to the forest.

This sequel to Dodge’s first book, Bessie, Bunty and Beauty, in many
ways continues the story about wild and domestic animals living on a
western ranch. Although Dodge knows his material, his writing style is
awkward and his plots tend to be hackneyed. The book holds no great
surprises, just a lot of weak scenes straining a little too hard to be
cute. Not a firs-choice purchase.