OK, I’ve tried the IMDB and Google with as many keywords as possible, but no luck.
I remember seeing this movie in 3rd grade or so (1980). The story was about this kid who has an English teacher who loves poetry and reads to his class, particularly from this one book that he treasures (Author’s signature? First edition? Don’t know for sure). This kid loves deer, and there is a local park/reserve that he visits to spend time with the deer (feeding, grooming, etc.).
Anyway, he and his buddies go on a tear, vandalizing the school one evening, including this English teacher’s class. In the process, one of his friends gleefully rips this poetry book to shreds. Later on the tear, they sneak into the reserve and horse around before getting bored and leaving. The kid is reluctant in doing this and tries to make sure that his friends don’t do anything to harm the deer.
The next morning, he returns to the classroom (it may be early or a weekend or something) and encounters the teacher rummaging through the debris of the classroom. The teacher finds the remnants of his precious book and collapses into tears (similar to the teacher with the record collection in The Blackboard Jungle). The student watches this clandestinely but, IIRC, doesn’t seem too affected by it. Later, he goes to the reserve to visit the deer and realizes something catastrophic has happened: his friends had been in a utility shed, knocked over some poison (for gophers or something), and then failed to lock the door. Several of the deer had walked in and eaten the poison; now, the kid is watching as the caretaker is carting out all these dead deer. The boy collapses in tears similar to the way the teacher does earlier.
This is all I remember. The film is in color and in English, though it takes place in a northern climate in winter (stocking caps, coats & gloves, bare trees), so it could very well be Canadian and not American. Since we saw it in homeroom in its entirety, I’m inclined to say it was a short and not a feature length film. Any ideas?
