Owl
Moon
Yolen, J. (1987). Owl moon. New York, NY: Scholastic.
Jane Yolen is the author of Owl Moon, which received the Caldecott
Medal in 1988 and has been featured on Reading Rainbow.
Owl Moon is a wonderful story about a father who takes his child out late on a winter night to go owling. They brave the cold and develop a great family activity the child will never forget.
The setting of the story is a snowy winter night in the country. The setting is a very integral part of the story. The author also uses the literary device simile to create an image in the readers mind. For instance, on the first page the author wrote, “The trees stood still as giant statues.” and “Somewhere behind us a train whistle blew, long and low, like a sad, sad song.” The author uses this literary device again later in the book. I would teach students how to identify a simile and then have the read the text looking for examples. The author also did a great job using descriptive details to help the reader form a mental picture of the events.
The illustrator John Schoenherr used colors that complemented the text. Although you never see
the moon in any of the illustrations, his use of the vivid white lets you know
the moon is reflecting on the fallen snow.
The composition of this
reflection of the moon’s light helps to light up the scene and enriches the mood of the text. In the picture to the right the illustrator uses
the contrasting gray to form the shadows of the father and his child; this would
insinuate the moon is in front of them even though the moon is not captured in
this illustration.
The following link is a teacher reading aloud Owl
Moon. She stops in several places and
has the students think about the illustrations and has the students making self
to text connections throughout. This
would be a really great way to incorporate this into a literacy center activity.
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