Synopsis
"Few children now have access to the open woodlands and grasslands frequented by barn owls, but they can all enjoy the magic of the bird thanks to this lovely introduction." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
A young girl and her grandfather look for a barn owl night after night. Will a distinctive heart-shaped face appear at the window? Michael Foreman’s lush, intimate paintings are a perfect companion to Nicola Davies’s lyrical text featuring intriguing facts about a rare bird indeed.
Children's Literature
Around the story, narrated by a child, of the efforts of her grandfather and herself to set up a nest for a barn owl, information about the life, appearance, activities, and family of barn owls is clearly delineated. The tale of the wait for an owl to come to nest and of the observations of the two watchers is told with wonder and printed in large type. On the same pages, useful facts are added as if in penned notes. The visuals are bathed in the evening's deep blue, starting on the endpapers where a leafless tree sits in an otherwise unbroken blue landscape. The title page introduces the humans and a ladder to the tree; then we follow them as they carry a large box for the nest. Watercolors and pastels create the people, atmosphere, and objects with convincing clarity and a sense of wonder. Eventually the owl settles in and we see close-ups of its soft whiteness against the darkening sky. On the back endpapers, the tree in the same landscape has leaves, while two owls fly off into the sky. An added note is an encouragement to help bring back barn owls by making a nest box. There is also an index.