HOW TO SAVE AN OWL

Two baby owls left homeless by a storm get just the care they need from a solicitous family.

Joining the simultaneously publishing How To Save an Otter to kick off a chapter book series featuring a family of animal rescuers, this episode introduces 11-year-old Ezra, who briefly leaves off fretting about whether he can keep up with the middle schoolers on his new baseball team when he and his sister, Ivy, find two Eastern screech owl nestlings in the grass near a fallen tree. Being trained volunteer “Critter Couriers,” the sibs and their parents first carefully carry the owlets to a local wildlife hospital to be checked over, then later “re-nest” the pair in a specially designed box and keep watch in the hopes that the parent owls will return. Into a simple but effective storyline that sees Ezra grappling with his baseball worries, Messner seamlessly weaves guidelines for safe, proper handling of wild creatures that are injured or in need of rescue. She also expands on them with more detailed advice for would-be “wildlife heroes” at the end. Along with particularly enticing owl portraits at the chapter heads and elsewhere, Bricking depicts the light-skinned Ezra joining diverse classmates and welcoming teammates to study owl pellets (compressed, regurgitated bits of undigested food) in school and to construct more nesting boxes.

An engaging tale, loaded with both information and child appeal.