Owl Moon

This book is about nature and winter, about owling and hope. Every page is like a poem, and I can feel the winter gentle, silent as a dream. I love the details that are so real to me: long shadows on snow as white as milk in a cereal bowl. 

I hear the train in the distance as farm dogs answer in a song. I can relate so vividly that this book gives me shivers. I know that feeling of a scarf over my mouth, wet and warm and furry. Meant to be read over and over, I still delight… show more.

Owl Moon is the poetic story of a young girl who, long past her bedtime, is going owling with her father on a winter’s night. It’s an adventure for the girl as she and her father, almost in silence, crunch over the crisp snow searching for the Great Horned Owl. The woods are lit with a winter moon "whiter than a milk in a cereal bowl." Eventually, their patience is rewarded as the owl lands on a branch right on the tree they are standing under. The father lifts the little girl, who is tired from the whole adventure, and… show more.

As loud and boisterous as Bear Hunt is, Owl Moon is quiet and hushed—so quiet that you can hear the wind on the frozen tree branches and feel the chill of the night air while reading this book. Jane Yolen’s poetic text and John Schoenherr’s rich art takes us into the moonlit night on an “Owling” trek with Pa, on a search for this ghost bird of winter, and leaves you breathless by the end.