Sunday, December 21, 2014

Owls in the Family (Farley Mowat)

What a fun book. I read it years ago, but it was really fun to read again. We picked this book for Gr. 3 Book Club this month. I am sure it will be a hit. What kid doesn't love adventures with animals?! 

It made me think of various animals we had as pets. When I was in elementary school we lived on an average. I remember playing with our sheep, Wooly, before the bus would arrive. We would have to remember to hurry clip his rope back up to the clothesline when we saw the dust from the bus at the neighbours down the road. Later he got mean and would butt us right off the deck. Then we ate him. :)

We had a lot of different animals back then: Wild cats and kittens, pigs, cows, horses, and of course, dogs. I wish I had been as adventurous as the boys in this story. We would have had more stories to tell!

This book is a book that will keep you chuckling.

I haven't read it aloud to my students, but I bet it would make a great read aloud. It isn't too long and there is a lot of funny stuff! Great read!

Reread September 2021: Read this aloud to my class. Funny how reading aloud made some things much more apparent. I found myself editing out the racist comments about black people and first nations people. My book is now edited so that I'm not humming and hawing if I read this aloud again. I wonder if books like this should be re-written to reflect some of the ideas on racism from today? The owls and other animals stories are great entertainment still.

Good reads summary: 

Every child needs to have a pet. No one could argue with that.

But what happens when your pet is an owl, and your owl is terrorizing the neighbourhood?

In Farley Mowat’s exciting children’s story, a young boy’s pet menagerie – which includes crows, magpies, gophers and a dog – grows out of control with the addition of two cantankerous pet owls. The story of how Wol and Weeps turn the whole town upside down is warm, funny, and bursting with adventure and suspense.


From the eBook edition.



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