Martin Waddell, Owl Babies. Illustrated by Patrick Benson. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 1992.
"Once there were three baby owls: Sarah and Percy and Bill." So begins this brilliant and beautiful book about being together and being apart. It is so well known at this point that I almost hesitate to recommend it, but I ca't not do so.
The owls live in a hole in a trunk of a tree with their mother. One night when they wake up, she is gone. Each owlet reponds to the situation in characteristic fashion: Sarah thinks things through, Percy expands upon her explanation, and Bill plaintively just wants their mother back. As they wait in the dark of the night and the forest, more frightened than they say, Sarah organizes them: "I think we should all sit on my branch." Then even she begins to lose faith in their mother's return. "And he baby owls closed their owl eyes and wished their Owl Mother would come." When she does, it is with a majesty that her affectionate scolding does nothing to undermine.
There are few picture books that so deeply communicate the feelings of their characters as does this one. Patrick Benson's close focus on the owlets renders their individuality and their samenesses, and when he (only once) allows us to see them in the vastness of the forest, we see their terrible vulnerability.
This is a wonderful book to share with a child who is struggling with the arbitrary comings and goings of the adult world, with feeling small in a very big world, with trusting that people always come back.
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