The Smallest Owlet

Because so many bird species are migratory, it’s easy to associate the seasons of spring and summer as being the nesting time for all birds. Great Horned Owls, however, are not migratory, and the “excerpt” pair are searching for an appropriate nesting site, one which they find in the form of an abandoned magpie nest. There, though it is still winter, the female lays three eggs, one per day, and she sits on them for more than 30 days while her mate brings her food. Then, over a three day period, the eggs hatch in the order in which they were laid, with each owlet being smaller than the one before. The wrinkle that Graham adds to her story of the nesting cycle of Great Horned Owls is that the youngest and smallest owlet, then just five weeks old, falls from the nest as a murder of crows harasses the owls. For the next week, the mother owl protectively remains on the ground with the smallest owlet, the male providing food for all. When a week older, the smallest owl is able to use its hooked beak and talons to ascend the aspen tree and rejoin its siblings. The remainder of the story follows the owlets, Smallest Owlet in particular, as they learn to fly and become increasing less dependent on their parents for food until, in late summer, they strike out on their own. In the book’s four closing pages, Graham provides additional information about Great Horned Owls, including facts about their eyesight, hunting technique, digestion (including pellets) and hearing.

According to information found on the outside back cover, “The Smallest Owlet is based on a true story that happened in the aspen grove behind Georgia Graham's house where an owlet fell from its nest. Mother Owl stayed on the ground with the owlet, heroically protecting it until its flight feathers developed.”

Beginning with the eye-catching cover art, Graham’s illustrations are absolutely outstanding. The book’s design includes the bonus of illustrated endpapers that lead readers into and out of the story by presenting a stand of leafless aspens at dawn/dusk with the deserted magpie nest in the foreground. As well as a small spot illustration, each pair of facing pages contains a major illustration that is either a full two-page spread or a one-pager that bleeds into the second page. For example, on the two pages dealing with the owls’ eggs hatching, the spot illustration on the lefthand text page features three eggs against a white background, with one egg evidencing the cracking that signals an owlet is about to hatch. The accompanying larger illustration, a nighttime scene, bleeds into the text page and reveals the female owl atop the nest that contains an owlet, a hatching egg and a yet unhatched egg. As the copyright page did not include any information about the media Graham used for her artwork in The Smallest Owlet, I visited her website and found that she works in acrylics and pastels. Still uncertain, I accepted her website invitation to email her and received the following response to my question, “What medium did you use for The Smallest Owlet?”

As I illustrate in chalk pastel and chalk pencils, I constantly need to keep my pencils sharp, and so I use a bench grinder (outside because of the pastel dust) rather than an exacto knife or pencil sharpener that take too long and break the sticks more.

For the ‘full bleed’ illustrations (with backgrounds), I work on tinted/sanded pastel paper. For the spot illustrations (white backgrounds), I work on cold press illustration board. But I also use a frisket to mask off the white background. I put the frisket on my illustration board that has the sketch on it, cut around the image carefully and peel the frisket off. I render that area with pastel and then peel the rest of the frisket off.

The Smallest Owlet would be an excellent individual or small group read and would certainly have a place in natural science classes.