Thursday, May 15, 2008

Owls in the Family

Once again, I've dithered about and not been able to come up with a thorough account of our week's best library picks. However, I'd like to mention our inter-library loan score!

I haven't read a lot of Farley Mowat's stuff, but what I have read I have loved. I think Elise will eventually love The Dog Who Wouldn't Be, for example. For now, though, I thought that Owls in the Family would be perfect.

We started reading, and Elise was bored by the first chapter. It's a lot of introduction to the plains of Saskatchewan as seen through the eyes of adventuresome boys. Her attention wasn't really caught until baby owls entered the picture, and then she was really distressed by dead ones.

(Elise is obsessed with death these days-really trying to figure it out. We've been reading and talking and I'm mostly sure that we should keep talking until she gets bored of the topic. Anybody with insights please feel free to comment on this entry or mail me privately.)

The absolute best part of our reading experience was when Elise realized that Wol and Weeps had become friends. You'd be hard pressed to see a girl more enamored of a story and its possibilities. They're friends! They stay together and play together! Beautiful. She also really liked hearing about Wol sneaking up on Mutt, though I could tell that she had some reservations about an owl picking on a "helpless" dog.

The stories in this book were fun to share, and I think we'll enjoy reading them again when she's older. In the mean time, she's welcomed a new enthusiasm to her repertoire. When Elise and Andy went to a nature center this weekend, they saw an owl and Elise was enamored. "I've never seen an owl in person!" Of course she has, but before we read Owls in the Family she hadn't really noticed.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Owls in the family was one of my girls' favorites, too. In fact, at one point they had to select names for when they helped me be a counselor at Girl Scout camp. They quickly dubbed themselves Weeps and Wol. It is a shame that Mowat doesn't have more for kids. The Dog Who Wouldn't Be is another family favorite (and a real tear jerker).