![]() ![]() My first owl encounter was also as a child. (Find more of my favourite owl-themed picture books listed at the end of this article.) “It’s not an exact story of David taking Heidi out owling, but an amalgam of many such trips he did with all of our children.” Yolen explains how she based it on a family tradition: “The father is my husband David, the child our daughter Heidi,” she explains. Father and child, braving the night searching for the magnificent Great Horned Owl. ![]() This haunting quality seems apt, given the subject matter. One review describes the book as haunting (defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as ‘having qualities (such as sadness or beauty) that linger in the memory: not easily forgotten’), which is certainly my experience of it. ![]() I’ve often thought of it but only recently bought myself a copy. That first encounter with Owl Moon has stuck with me. But this picture book – telling the simple story of a child’s first owling trip with their father – transported me somewhere altogether more appealing: a shadowy forest, blanketed in snow, I discovered (and first read) it in the children’s library at the University of Roehampton while waiting, with a considerable amount of trepidation, to be interviewed for a teacher training course in the early ’90s. I thought I’d continue last week’s theme (night walking) and share the magical Owl Moon by Jane Yolen (illustrated by John Schoenherr) with you. ![]()
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