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A review by booksong
The Capture by Kathryn Lasky
5.0
There are a lot of animal fantasies on the shelves; authors constantly competing to create worlds with anthropomorphic creatures that talk and think. This series did it right, and it will always be one of my favorites.
Soren is a Barn Owl, hatched in the Forest of Tyto, in a world where human beings are only a mysterious memory from the past. But Soren's comfortable nest life is short-lived; somehow, he falls from the nest he shares with his fierce older brother Kludd and sweet sister Eglantine, and is immediately picked up. But not by a rescuer.
Thus, Soren enters St. Aggie's, the twisting maze of canyons that calls itself a "school" for young owlets. There, thousands of owls are divided into groups, forced to perform bizarre rituals and tasks, and indoctrinated into a world where no owl thinks for itself, or worse, is allowed to fly.
With only the companionship of a sharp-minded Elf Owl named Gylfie, Soren must struggle to keep himself from being overcome by the horrors that he discovers within St. Aggie's. And the only way to escape from a deep canyon is to learn to fly.
In this first novel of a great series, Lasky builds a world populated with all kinds of characters and all kinds of owl species. I love owls, so I was fascinating learning about the different characteristics of each. Not only that, but the plot twisted and turned, full of horrific revelations and triumphant moments. And the end is really only the beginning.
Soren is a Barn Owl, hatched in the Forest of Tyto, in a world where human beings are only a mysterious memory from the past. But Soren's comfortable nest life is short-lived; somehow, he falls from the nest he shares with his fierce older brother Kludd and sweet sister Eglantine, and is immediately picked up. But not by a rescuer.
Thus, Soren enters St. Aggie's, the twisting maze of canyons that calls itself a "school" for young owlets. There, thousands of owls are divided into groups, forced to perform bizarre rituals and tasks, and indoctrinated into a world where no owl thinks for itself, or worse, is allowed to fly.
With only the companionship of a sharp-minded Elf Owl named Gylfie, Soren must struggle to keep himself from being overcome by the horrors that he discovers within St. Aggie's. And the only way to escape from a deep canyon is to learn to fly.
In this first novel of a great series, Lasky builds a world populated with all kinds of characters and all kinds of owl species. I love owls, so I was fascinating learning about the different characteristics of each. Not only that, but the plot twisted and turned, full of horrific revelations and triumphant moments. And the end is really only the beginning.