title: White Owl, Barn Owl (Read and Wonder)
author:  Nicola Davies 
description: As in her previous titles, such as Bat Loves the Night (2001), zoologist Davies pulls young kids into the animal world with an atmospheric story that is filled with facts. A young boy helps his grandfather build a box for a barn owl and install it in a nearby tree. Together they wait and watch, and after many evenings, they spot a barn owl flying into their homemade nest, carrying prey for its young. On each spread, fonts in different sizes guide children toward the facts: words in larger typeface tell the story; lines in a smaller font, which resembles handwriting, imparts simple facts about owls' pellets, feathers, body features, and nesting habits. A concluding note tells more about nesting boxes. The poetic, sensory words (the owl's feathers have a "velvety softness") and the realistic, watercolor-and-pastel pictures, especially thoseof the snow-white bird against the darkening sky, will place kids at the center of the boy's experience even as it heightens their interest in these intriguing animals. Engberg, Gillian <br /><i>Copyright  American Library Association. All rights reserved</i>
zlib_text: ![](Images/image00193.jpeg)
  
  ![](Images/image00170.jpeg)
  
  ![](Images/image00157.jpeg)
  
  ![](Images/image00172.jpeg)
  
  ![](Images/image00184.jpeg)
  
  ![](Images/image00176.jpeg)
  
  ![](Images/image00171.jpeg)
  
  ****
  
  ****
  
  **I didn’t tell Dad** about Granmama’s white owl. I know I should have.
  
  There’s that space between sleep and dreaming where things—not quite dreams,
  not fully fledged precognition, but weird little blends of both—sometimes get
  in. Your eyes open, slow and dreamy, when the sense of _someone looking_ rises
  through the cotton-wool fog of being warm and tired.
  
  That’s when I saw it.
  
  The owl ruffled itself up on my windowsill drenched in moonglow, each pale
  feather sharp and clear under icy light. I hadn’t bothered to pull the cheap
  blinds down or hang up the curtains.
  
  Why bother, when we—Dad and me—only spend a few months in any town?
  
  I blinked at the yellow-eyed bird. Instead of the comfort that means Gran is
  thinking about me—
  
  and don’t ask how I know the dead think of th