Owl In Love

Kindl, Patrice. Owl in Love. Houghton, 1993.

My 13 year old daughter, Aitana, would love this book, but she won't read it. She said the cover looks creepy.

Why does it look creepy? Is it the greyed tones of the girl's face on the cover? Is it the overlay of the owl's wing across her brow? Is it the blurb that reads "School girl by day, owl by night..." Aitana won't say (which I suppose is a new standard for my now teenage daughter).

Why would she love it? Here are my top five reasons (with SPOILERS - be warned!):

1. The main character is named Owl Tycho, which is clearly a cool name.


2. Owl is a sulky, ostracized teenage girl, so my daughter should empathize entirely with her.


3. Owl is magic; she is the daughter of witches and a shape changer - again, clearly cool.


4. Owl's love interest is a dark and damaged boy, Aitana's favorite flavor!


5. Kindl has written this beautifully. The first person narration may at first seem stilted, until one realizes that Owl is a girl with a 18th-century soul forced to negotiate her way through a 20th-century world. Owl's struggles as she is befriended by Dawn, a wonderfully complex character in her own right, are the real heart of this novel and develop questions of friendship to which any teen can relate.