He’ll never get to sleep unless he can figure out what’s going on! But as soon as he settles in, he hears a strange noise. While each animal rests in its own special way, little ones will also drift off to a cozy sleep. Il Sung Na makes his American debut with this gorgeous bedtime offering. With a spare, soothing text and beautifully rich and textured illustrations of a starry night, this is the perfect “book of sleep.” Join the owl on his moonlit journey as he watches all the other animals settle in for the night: some sleep standing up, while some sleep on the move! Some sleep peacefully alone, while others sleep all together, huddled close. Following the life cycle of the barn owl, this gentle poem evokes a sense of warm sunshine and envelopes readers with the memory of the scent of a wheat field. With outstretched wings, this barn owl returns to his barn nest and his hungry family, repeating the ageless ritual his ancestors have practiced here, in this barn, for at least one hundred years. Feathered against the endless starry night, he swoops and sails to the darkened wheat field below and catches a mouse in his nimble talons. Every night, as the moon rises, a barn owl awakens and flies out to hunt. The owls have nested there and have hunted in the fields and circled in the night skies as time slowly slipped by.

Tony Johnston’s THE BARN OWLS recalls in quiet tones the memory of a barn that has stood alone in a wheat field for one hundred years at least.

Molly the Owl by Eric Blehm