The novel traces the life of Bambi, a male roe deer, from his birth through childhood, the loss of his mother, the finding of a mate, the lessons he learns from his father, and the experience he gains about the dangers posed by human hunters in the forest.

Janet Schulman published a children's picture book adaptation in 2000 that featured realistic oil paintings and many of Salten's original words.

After this, the novel skips ahead a year, noting that Bambi, now a young adult, was cared for by Nettla and that when he got his first set of antlers he was abused and harassed by the other males.

During the summer, Gobo returns to the forest, having been raised by a man who found him collapsed in the snow during the hunt where Bambi's mother was killed.

Marena becomes his mate, but several weeks later Gobo is killed when he approaches a hunter in the meadow, falsely believing the halter he wore would keep him safe from all men.

Several times he meets with the Old Prince, who teaches him about snares, shows him how to free another animal from one, and encourages him not to use trails and avoid the men's traps.

When Bambi is later shot by a hunter, the Prince shows him how to walk in circles to confuse the man and his dogs until the bleeding stops, then takes him to a safe place to recover.

Felix Salten, himself an avid hunter,[3][4] penned Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde after World War I, targeting an adult audience.

To a reader familiar with the 1928 translation, some of Zipes' more faithful anthropomorphic choices are jarring; it feels odd to read that a fawn "yelled," for example.

[21]Zipes occasionally increases the anthropomorphism beyond that suggested by Salten, as when he uses the pronouns "he" and "she" in a conversation between two autumn leaves, which are genderless in the original text.

[22] The Zipes translation is also not quite complete: one reviewer noted omissions ranging from short phrases and individual sentences to an entire passage recounting Bambi's first meeting with the old roebucks.

[29][30] David Nimmer, in a 1998 article, argued that the Twin Books ruling meant that an ancient Greek epic, if only published outside the U.S. without the required formalities, would be eligible for copyright protection.

[38][failed verification] The reader is made to feel deeply and thrillingly the terror and anguish of the hunted, the deceit and cruelty of the savage, the patience and devotion of the mother to her young, the fury of rivals in love, the grace and loneliness of the great princes of the forest.

In word pictures that are sometimes breath-taking the author draws the forest in all its moods—lashed into madness by storms, or white and silent under snow, or whispering and singing to itself at daybreak.

[12] He felt that Salten captured the essence of each of the creatures as they talked, catching the "rhythm of the different beings who people his forest world" and showed particular "comprehension" in detailing the various stages of Bambi's life.

[12] A reviewer for Catholic World praised the approach of the subject, noting that it was "marked by poetry and sympathy [with] charming reminders of German folklore and fairy tale" but disliked the "transference of certain human ideals to the animal mind" and the vague references to religious allegory.

Long felt the prose was "poised and mobile and beautiful as poetry" and praises Salten for his ability to give the animals seemingly human speech while not "[violating] their essential natures.

"[39] Vicky Smith of Horn Book Magazine felt the novel was gory compared to the later Disney adaptation and called it a "weeper".

"[45] A half century later,The Wall Street Journal's James P. Sterba also considered it an "antifascist allegory" and sarcastically notes that "you'll find it in the children's section at the library, a perfect place for this 293-page volume, packed as it is with blood-and-guts action, sexual conquest and betrayal" and "a forest full of cutthroats and miscreants.

"[46] Among UK reviews, the Times Literary Supplement stated that the novel is a "tale of exceptional charm, though untrustworthy of some of the facts of animal life.

[7] Sidney Franklin, a producer and director at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, purchased the film rights in 1933, initially desiring to make a live-action adaptation of the work.

[49] In 1938, Disney assigned Perce Pearce and Carl Fallberg to develop the film's storyboards, but attention was soon drawn away as the studio began working on Fantasia.

[49] Finally, on 17 August 1939, production on Bambi began in earnest, although it progressed slowly due to changes in the studio personnel, location and the methodology of handling animation at the time.

Disney's version severely downplays the naturalistic and environmental elements found in the novel, giving it a lighter, friendlier feeling.

[5][7] The addition of two new characters, Thumper the Rabbit and Flower the Skunk, two sweet and gentle forest creatures, contributed to giving the film the desired levity.

[55][57] A French-language live-action film, Bambi, l’histoire d’une vie dans les bois, directed and written by Michel Fessler, was released in 2024.

[64][65] A collaboration between artistic director James Canfield and composer Thomas Lauderdale, the ballet's production was to be an interpretation of the novel rather than the Disney film.

[64] In discussing the adaptation, Canfield stated that he was given a copy of the novel as a Christmas present and found it to be a "classic story about coming of age and a life cycle.

[64] The local press began calling the ballet alternative titles, including Not-Bambi which Canfield noted to be his favorite, out of derision at Disney.

[66][67] Crafted for young adults and teenagers and retaining the title Bambi – A Life in the Woods, it has been produced around the United States at various venues.