Having been a big fan of Darcie Little Badger’s previous books (see my review of Sheine Lende) and enjoyed her readings at WorldCon and Armadillocon, I’ve been looking forward to reading her new contemporary fantasy novel, Children of Owl, but events conspired against me, so I didn’t finish it until today, publication day. However, any time is a good time to read this one! It has several engaging young-adult viewpoint characters, really interesting interwoven storylines, and themes of friendship and perseverance through loss and danger. Furthermore, I love the charming illustrations throughout, including quite a few graphic-novel-style pages that carry the story forward in picture form! The other way the format changes throughout the book is that the text alternates between regular first-person past and present narrative in the voice of the main protagonist, and diary entries by her and her friends (indicated by appearing on what looks like scholastic-type lined paper and a handwriting-style font); I didn’t have any trouble following the viewpoint changes, and they offered useful perspectives on what was happening. Middle-grade and YA readers should enjoy this very much, but I also highly recommend it for adults.
The main protagonist is Maisie, a Lipan Apache living in a trailer park, who has numerous cousins and friends, mostly of her tribe but some of mixed heritage. The book starts out with some text and illustrations of her climbing a mountain to seek healing for her sick friend Mara, and seeing a mythic manifestation. Later, she’s trying to locate a time capsule that Mara had buried, but she gets caught up in her friends’ problems: Another friend, Verona, is caretaking at a haunted house, and Joel gets into trouble, too. Maisie receives a warning from her friend Owl, the shapeshifting son of Big Owl whom others can’t see, that doom is coming; he can’t specify who it’s coming for, so she tries to figure out what the doom will be and how to avert it, and thereby gets involved in situations around her community.
Verona has been dreaming of escaping the trailer park. She jumps at the opportunity to baby-sit for a rich family, but when that eventually leads to a house-sitting job, she finds out that she’s in over her head. She asks Maisie, her bravest friend/classmate, for help.
Joel’s mischief is taken very seriously by the grownups because they don’t want this boy to end up in prison like Connor, a young man (Maisie’s cousin) convicted of murder. They decide to keep him out of trouble by making him take care of some elders’ cats. Finding out something about one of those cats sends him on a quest of his own, which Maisie eventually assists.
Maisie solves several problems for and with her friends, but new problems keep cropping up. Something that seemed like a fun but trivial anecdote at the beginning of the book pops up again to play an important part in the unfolding events. Eventually, the friends all get into really serious trouble, but by then they’re all used to working together and helping each other.
I really enjoyed this book. I like Maisie and her friends, and her cousin Connor’s letters show that he is a sweet man, too. I like that Maisie and her friends learns to trust each other with their secrets and reach out for help instead of each of them just trying to do everything by their own self. Everybody has problems, but everything is better when the assorted kids work together. The parents aren’t in on everything, but most of them are clearly doing their best to raise their children to survive and hopefully even thrive in this sometimes hostile world. Even the people who do wrong things here are mostly acting out of ignorance, although there are still some bad people in the world. Because of the good people, this world also has a lot of hope in it.
This is an entertaining and engaging novel with some very positive themes and some impressive, sometimes adorable artwork. It deals with some serious themes with a deft touch, acknowledging grief without dwelling on it too much. The plot has a lot going on, but it ends up tied back into itself and making sense of everything. I enjoyed Children of Owl very much.
Children of Owl, by Darcie Little Badger, illustrated by Abigail Rajunov, is now available. according to NetGalley, but Amazon says the ebook is unavailable until Oct. 13 although you can get the hardback delivered the next day (that would be Oct. 7, for me). I read it as a PDF directly from the publisher, on my laptop, and the artwork is pleasingly evocative and colorful and doesn’t seem to have suffered from its transition to the electronic format; however, on the eARC that I downloaded separately via NetGalley to my Fire 10 tablet, the formatting is a bit messed up on the art and diary pages (maybe that’s being fixed, and that could be why the ebook is still unavailable). Moreover, the hardcover is just $19.99 currently, not much more expensive than the ebook, so I’d recommend buying the physical copy; besides, then you can lend it to your relatives and/or friends!
Content warnings: References to childhood illness and death, and a murder in the past; haunted house; artifact collection/grave-robbing, from a certain point of view; lying; looming dread and danger.
Disclaimer: I received a PDF from the publisher and an eARC via NetGalley, for review purposes. Also, I am a friend of the author and am involved in an online D&D campaign with her.
