Owl Boy

Al’s passion for owls knows no boundaries—his bedroom walls are covered with posters devoted to them, and he tries to emulate them in his own life. “Owls eat mice!” says Al when meatloaf is on the dinner menu. “Owls go out at night!” is his response to his father’s suggestion that he play outdoors. It’s much the same when Al is unwillingly sent to summer camp, but after getting lost in the woods one night, he has the close encounter of the bird kind that he’s been waiting for his whole life. In watercolor cartoons outlined in bold black marker, Schatell (On the First Night of Chanukah) pictures Al balanced on a tree stump, eyes closed in pure bliss as owls swirl around him in the night sky: “It was an owl extravaganza!” It’s a knowingly funny tribute to the intense focus that children can devote to a single subject—which isn’t to say those passions are permanently fixed. All it takes is a bite of one mouse, offered by a kindly owl, to get Al to change his tune. Ages 3–6. (May)