Owl Moon

"When you go owling

you don't need words

or warm

or anything but hope."

Jane Yolen's Owl Moon is a story that could be a poem.  In it, a young boy ventures out for a night of owling with his father.  We don't know where they are but we do know tree shadows "stain" the snow.  And the moon is so bright that it makes the snow below it shine "whiter than the milk in a cereal bowl".  The cold feels like "someone's icy hand...palm-down" on your back.

Yolen's lyrical text bring a quiet cadence to this story of hope and discovery.  John Schoenherr's indigo-tinged watercolors evoke all the magic of a winter night in the woods.

"If you go owling

you have to be quiet,

that's what Pa always says.

I had been waiting

to go owling with Pa

for a long, long time."

Owl Moon

written by Jane Yolen

illustrated by John Schoenherr