I just discovered that I seem to have "lost" my last copy of Owl at Home and will have to get another. I do tend to lend them out as this is one of my all time favorite books. There is a new edition, which is great as old ones are not that easy to find. Frog and Toad are wonderful, but there is something about Owl that just captured my heart. I know that this book is on a number of teacher lists, but I still don't feel it is fully appreciated. There is only one book about Owl rather than the collection of Frog and Toad and I think I know why. Because Owl at Home is special. Lobel has done something here that is VERY different and difficult. He wrote an entire book with just one character.
Maybe it is because I'm a bit of a loner, but I totally appreciate these stories. There are no friends, no real relationships, just Owl and his imagination. Owl talks to the wind, Owl sees his feet as bumps, Owl makes tea, Owl, runs up and down the stairs, Owl watches the moon. I'm afraid that, if there had been more Owl stories, they may have seemed repetitious, but, in one book, they are brilliant.
My favorite story is Tear-water Tea where Owl thinks sad thoughts so he can cry into a teapot and then, drinking his tea, remarks that "it tastes a bit salty, but Tear-water Tea is always very good." Such self-therapy! The pathos, the drama, the concept. As a writer, I am in awe. And it is an Easy Reader. So hard, so good.
Teacher notes: I have used Tear-water Tea as a writing prompt with 2nd and 3rd graders. What funny/sad things would they think of to cry about for Tear-water Tea? The only response I remember years later is: "TV where the only show is Barney!"
- Owl at Home by Arthur Lobel
- Publisher: HarperCollins 1975
- ISBN-10: 0064440346
- ISBN-13: 978-0064440349
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