The Capture

What a curious world. Lasky endears us to a young barn owl named Soren. Follow Soren through an unnerving adventure and meet some other interesting (and some not so nice) owls along the way.
I'd recommend this to readers starting in maybe 3rd grade. It's appealing enough for young readers and still interesting for older readers. There is a small amount of cartoon violence, but no humans.

A charming book about the horror of being kidnapped, nearly getting brainwashed, having your down feathers plucked, almost getting blood-sucked by vampire bats, etc. And then escaping.

I liked this book. Started reading it last night, finished it this afternoon. I had tried, years ago in middle school, to read this book, but I just couldn't get through it. It had seemed boring and too dark, or something like that.

But now, as a junior in high school, this book was great. I can now see the creativity and purpose in this book. And I liked the characters and the originality of the whole book.

PROS:
- the chapters are short and straight to the point. The author does not waste her time with detailed descriptions unless they mean something to the characters.
- The book is fairly realistic. Like, comparing this to other fantasy books about non-human beings (Wings of Fire, Warriors, etc.), children do not randomly know or think about details they logically shouldn't know about (they think like what they are–children), the owls don't shrug (I don't know how warrior cats shrug without sitting back on their butts to painfully lift their paws off the ground with their shoulders), and the language the owls use is unique and makes sense (except for one time when Twilight's fighting some owls and sings about “punching”).
- The stakes. I really, really badly wanted them to escape. Which I guess is actually due to the characters: The characters were likeable. I guess a large part of that being that they are innocent children who I don't want to see blood-sucked or feather-plucked.
- The story and the world are very original. I'm sure the kidnapped-orphans-try-to-save-the-world plot has been done before, but the way in which the book deals with this plot is very original.

CONS:
- Some might see the language and style of the dialogue as distracting, as the owls do not speak “modern English”, but a more classy-sounding English mixed in with owl slang.
- People who like detailed, clever descriptions of setting may not like the book, as it describes only the necessary (it is not as bad as warriors, though!)
- Some characters and ideas seem a bit...basic. Like, Kludd. Kludd, in this book, is an evil big brother who complains a lot, and Mrs. Plithiver senses something very un-owlish about him. He's kind of evil for no reason other than to be evil, it seems. And because he's “mean”, he is un-owlish. This observation disappointed me because it gave off a belief of, “He is evil; therefore, he is not ‘human'”. Villains have depth and feelings, too. That's what makes them interesting. Also, the theme of believing is not really expanded upon to have deeper meaning; it's more like a repeated concept. That also may just be the author's way of portraying how children think about the world, however–if I believe it, it is real.