★ “The poetic text is powerful and effective at building tension and then providing hope. The color palette perfectly conjures the before, during, and after of the fire while Marino’s lyrical text from the deer’s view point gives it context. It is a potent combination.” —School Library Journal, Starred Review
★ “Marino’s story poignantly describes a forest fire from the perspective of a deer living in the woodlands. . . . As the pages turn, evocative gouache paintings silhouetting animals and tangled tree branches shift movingly in hue from green to orange to charred black, then to the cooling blue of rain and the green of new growth. The author’s afterword shares her experiences with wildfires alongside wildfire facts.”—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
★ “Inspired by her own experiences in the 2017 fires in California, Marino tells this story in the nostalgic but also hopeful voice of one of the forest-dwellers . . . These double-page spreads have the translucence of watercolors and constantly change colors. The yellows and greens of the forest are overtaken by fiery reds and oranges, which turn to sooty gray, then warm brown, with, finally, shoots of green. Reassurance about the resilience of the natural world.”—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
★ “Marino’s strong yet delicate paintings feature overlapping layers of luminous colors: tranquil blues and greens at the beginning, yellows and flaming reds when the fire takes hold, brownish grays and black afterwards, and in the future, greens and blues again. Creating a mood as well as telling a story, the writing is spare, precise, and evocative.” —Booklist, Starred Review
“[T]imely and striking . . . Marino’s driving text is filled with descriptive verbs—the fire snaps and swallows—and her taut sentences pack a punch”—The Horn Book
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