Over the past four nights I read aloud Owls in the Family to JediBoy and BabyGirl at bedtime. When I was in high school I had read Lost in the Barrens and Never Cry Wolf, but I wasn’t aware that Farley Mowat had written two books for children. I came across this title on a read-aloud reading list somewhere online (I hate it when I forget to bookmark these things) and jotted it down on an index card. When I was at the library last Monday I decided to check and see if they had the book. I saved it until we’d finished reading Stuart Little on Tuesday night (“WHAT? He never finds Margalo? Is that really the end? Read it again!”).
Owls in the Family is the true story of Farley Mowat’s two owl pets, Wol and Weeps, and their time together in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The first third of the book tells about how Mowat and his friends managed to procure an owlet - any story that involves an all-knowing grown-up falling out of a tree is guaranteed to put my boy into hysterics. Once Mowat has brought Wol home and found him a companion in the ever-timid Weeps, more crazy times ensue. The pet parade where his friend Bruce brings a rattlesnake in a box, the time Wol brings home a skunk as a special dinner-time treat, the afternoon when Wol chases the postman down the street. This short book (11 chapters, 107 pages) was packed with hilarious scenes.
JediBoy LOVED this book, and I enjoyed it too. JediBoy loves any stories about animals, but he was fascinated by the idea that this was a real story and that the storyteller, Wol and Weeps had really done all these crazy things. The tone was spot-on for JediBoy’s nighttime listening; it doesn’t talk down to children yet it has a very plain structure and matter-of-fact tone. It’s an older book (published in 1961) written about much older times (the family drives a Model A with a rumble seat).
Naturally, owning a Great Horned Owl has just risen to the top of JediBoy’s list of cool things we should do, and he’s been talking about it every evening!
Now that we’re done with this great book, I’m looking for more titles in a similar vein. I’ll go back and check out Mowat’s The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be, of course, but then I’ll be looking for other non-fiction animal memoirs with a good sense of storytelling that are aimed at a younger audience. It surprised me to find there isn’t a category of that name on Amazon.com! Here’s my list of future read-alouds so far; please comment with any books you know of that we might enjoy.
non-fiction
The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be - Farley Mowat
Rascal - Sterling North
My Life in Dog Years - Gary Paulsen
My Life with the Chimpanzees- Jane Goodall
fiction
There’s an Owl in the Shower - Jean Craighead George
Akimbo and the Elephants (series) - Alexander McCall Smith
Tornado - Betsy Byars
The Cricket in Times Square - George Selden
Bunnicula (series) - James Howe
The Trumpet of the Swan - E.B. White
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