Owl in Love -- Patrice Kindl

I re-read Owl in Love this weekend because I'm using it for my middle school reading group at the library:

I am in love with Mr. Lindstrom, my science teacher.  I found out where he lives and every night I perch on a tree branch outside his bedroom window and watch him sleep.  He sleeps in his underwear: Fruit of the Loom, size 34.

Owl Tycho is a wereowl:

I am Owl.  It is my name as well as my nature.  There are birds of prey in my family going back hundreds of years, one every two or three generations.  Others of my family shift to dog- or cat-kind, a few to hoofed or finned beasts.

Let me be clear.  I would not wish you to misunderstand: by night I seek my living in owl shape, among the fields and woods surrounding my home.  By day I am an ordinary girl (more or less) attending the local high school.  I am no vampire in a fairy tale, to be ruled by the sun or moon; I can shift to either shape at any time of night or day.

It's a perfect, perfect book.  That's the only way that I can really describe it.  Owl's voice is... well, perfect.  She sounds almost alien at times--because, to us, she is.  Well, half of her is.  But she's funny, too:

I had bitten him of the hand to stop the monotonous falsetto.  He did sound crazy when he talked like that.  The quotation was from Macbeth, reading material far too gloomy for a sensitive boy with a mind in delicate balance.  If he must read Shakespeare, surely the comedies would be a better choice.

Well.  Inadvertently funny, at any rate.

Yep.  Can't recommend it highly enough.  To read it is to love it.  To adore it, even.  It's a very special book. 

(Actually, I've enjoyed all of Patrice Kindl's books.  But especially Owl).

Comments

[Sheila Rene]

Where oh where were these kinds of books when I was a young whippersnapper?

[C.C.]

Sigh, I love Owl. How can someone with absolutely no sense of humor be so damn funny? Well, I guess there's a really obvious answer to that question, but I really love it.

[leila]

Owl is a book that anyone will enjoy, regardless of whippersnapper status.

There's another character like Owl--no sense of humor, yet very funny--but I can't remember what book she's in or who she is or anything. Any idea who I'm thinking of?

[Chrissy]

Yes! I think the book is blue!

(You know you deserved that right?)

[leila]

Yes, yes, I deserved it. But do you know what the book is?

(The blue one is probably Cat in the Hat, though. Or that ass World is a Village book).

[C.C.]

I have been pondering this all day and I think I have it: the Folk Keeper by Billingsley (about the girl who's half-selkie). Or at least it's another one where the narrator is pretty damn funny due to having no sense of humour at all (though she's kind of scary too).

[leila]

You're right. She is another one. But she isn't the one I'm thinking of.

Speaking of, the main character in The Goose Girl is totally scary at moments--mostly when she realizes that she can control the wind.

Arrrg. I almost had it, but it's still eluding me. Grrrr.

[Chrissy]

No, I don't know what book it is. I keep thinking it's Woman in the Wall by Kindl. But I don't remember you particularly liking it or it being very funny, just really, really weird.

Oh, wait, what about Blood and Chocolate by Klause with the 'meat boy' thing?

[NSL]

I love this book. Owl is very easy to get close to. When I finished reading I didn't want it to be over!