The Yearling is a novel written by
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and won the
Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1939.
The book details a young boy, Jody, who lives with his parents in beautiful scrub country in Florida (now Ocala National Forest). He finds and brings home an orphaned fawn to keep. Even at the outset, he is faced with brutally difficult choices about the needs of his struggling family and community and his desire to keep the fawn as a pet as it grows.
The novel clearly depicts the love between a child and his pet. As well, it focuses on the need placed on a youngster sometimes to act old and make rational, conscious decisions; and how to face failure and mature.
This book has been made into both a film and a musical.