Little Owl

Little Owl wakes up as soon as the sun sets ready to go on a forest adventure with her parents. While flying through the night sky, they come across other nocturnal animals - a hedgehog family, a friendly bat, and some interesting beetles. At the end of the starlit night, it is time for bed, and, as the sun rises, Little Owl and her parents fly home to cuddle in close and go to sleep.

Little Owl is a short and sweet tale for the very young that highlights how some creatures happen to be on the opposite schedule as us. The owl family explores the forest from the ground to the tops of the tree branches to say hello to other living things that awaken after the sun goes to sleep. A perfect tie-in for a toddler level science lesson or a great choice for children of shift workers to help them to appreciate how time is cyclical but not every living being follows the same timetable.

The images are sweet – animals with big, inviting eyes, and colourful natural elements. As the board book is depicting night, the drawings are very low contrast, and thus might be less appealing to infants and babies, but toddlers will be drawn to the bold use of shapes. As both the author and illustrator, Teckentrup has done a marvelous job marrying the text to the artwork and the result is a very polished and beautiful little book. I love that Little Owl is made of sustainable materials like recycled paper and eco-friendly inks so children can learn about the natural world without hurting it.