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The Spanish galleons which plied between the Orient and the Americas in the seventeenth century sometimes carried strange cargo. The records of the period note that a white deer was brought across the Pacific to Mexico to be reshipped across the Atlantic to the King of Spain, and presented to him with a golden collar around its neck. Elizabeth Treviño was intrigued by the idea: "I wondered what might have happened if the deer had arrived in Acapulco weak and ill from his journey." So she wrote the white deer's story, as it might have happened.
He is called Nacar, and his keeper has died on the journey across the Pacific. When Mexico's viceroy sees the trembling and listless Nacar led out of the ship, he decides that the deer must be cared for in Mexico until it is strong enough to make the journey to Spain. He sends for one of his herders, Lalo, a boy who seems to have a special way with animals, though he is mute as a result of a tragic shock suffered in infancy. Nacar and Lalo become good friends as they go off toward the high meadows where Lalo lives with his dog and the other shepherds. All through the fall and winter the bond between them grows, but in the spring Lalo becomes uneasy because he knows that soon Nacar will be strong enough to be sent to Spain. When the time comes, Lalo himself is chosen to go along to the royal court, where in crisis he finds that not even the King of Spain can stand between a boy and the animal he loves.
Elizabeth Borton de Treviño was born in California but has made her home in Mexico since her marriage. She knows well the countryside and the old trails she tells about in her story of Nacar. Mrs. Treviño is the mother of two grown sons. Her earlier books include My Heart Lies South, A Carpet of Flowers, Even as You Love, and Where the Heart Is. Her writing reveals her fondness for animals. "I believe in the power of love to move human hearts," she says, "and to draw to us and give us the confidence of the creatures who cannot speak."
—from the dust jacket
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