Fred the (very damanding) Deer by Pépé Smit – The Strawberry Post
A book review of a fun children’s picture book about Fred the deer who wants to do more than just be a deer and keeps telling the author to change his story.
About Fred the (very demanding) Deer
Title: Fred the (very demanding) Deer
Author: Pépé Smit
Illustrator: Pépé Smit
Publisher: Scallywag Press
Genre: Children’s picture book
Book format reviewed: Hardback
Sweet Strawberries: 
Description: Fred the Deer lives in a big forest. He eats grass and sometimes a leaf of two. He naps under his favourite tree, plays hide-and-seek and rolls in the grass. He is very happy.
Or is he?
In this wildly funny and anarchic picture book, Fred decides to take charge of his own story. Is that such a good idea? Read and and you’ll see…
*Free copy provided by publisher for review…
My review and thoughts on Fred the (very demanding) Deer
Fred is a deer who likes to eat grass and leaves, and loves spending time in his forest relaxing. But Fred is demanding and wants to be somewhere else, and then he wants to wear shoes, and then he wants something else, just how demanding will Fred get? This hardback is filled with some fun illustrations and text on thick matt pages. The book has a cloth spine.
I do like this story which is very fun and begins with the text introducing Fred the deer with a picture of a deer, but there are words from Fred, written in a different font, as he complains about the way he looks: too small, too big, too cute, etc., until the illustrator of the book paints him correctly. While most of the illustrations are that of Fred, as the story continues, you’ll see the odd image of what is the illustrator’s hands as the story is not only about Fred in general but also about Fred interacting with the author/illustrator who’s telling the tale. I do like this twist on the story which soon sees Fred demanding other things such as shoes and wanting to eat something deer don’t usually eat. I don’t want to give away more as it would spoil the story at this point but it’s a very fun and rather silly tale with an ending that is good too.
The illustrations are really good. I like the simplicity of most of the pictures of Fred and how you feel as if he’s being sketched into the story by the illustrator. But at the same time the pictures are still good with enough detail to tell the tale well and I like what happens and how Fred looks, especially later on when he acquires something that helps him to eat a new food. The book has some fun end pages with Fred sketched in lots of different poses and I like looking at these.
Overall this is a great picture book and one which has been translated from Dutch, it’s original title being Fred het (heel erg eigenwijze) hert. It’s the first in a series of books featuring Fred and I can’t wait to read more in future. It’s definitely a bit of a different picture book, but I love how Fred interacts with the author directly. A fun and slightly silly story.
What do you think of this book? If you could change any part of your story (life) what would it be? Let me know what you think in the comments below 🙂
