Avenging the Owl - Hardcover

Hart, Melissa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1634501470 ISBN 13: 9781634501477

Publisher: Sky Pony, 2016

Synopsis

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Han Solo avenged the destruction of an innocent planet by helping Luke Skywalker blow up the Death Star. Han walked away with a gold medal and the love of his life. But when Solo Hahn named in honor of the beloved action hero tries to avenge the death of his gray-and-white kitten, he gets eight months of community service. Eight months of working at the local raptor center helping owls his now sworn enemies.

For the first time in his life, Solo is labeled a troubled kid, an at-risk youth. He’d always gotten good grades, had good friends, and gotten along with his parents. He used to volunteer to read Reader’s Digest to old people at the retirement home next door, and his favorite thing in the whole wide world was to surf. He wrote screenplays for fun. But when his parents uproot him and move the family from California to backwoods Oregon, Solo starts to lose track of the person he was. Everything is upside down, and he finds himself dealing with things way beyond his understanding. He’s the new kid in town, and he’s got a bad reputation. The question is: What will he do next?

This is a story about staying true to yourself when things get tough. Solo has every reason to lash out, but he ultimately needs to find a way to cope. Avenging the Owl deals with the difficult issues of suicide and depression, but more than anything it captures the powerlessness of being a kid. It won’t be easy, but the wild beauty of Oregon, its cold, empty beaches and captivating wildlife, may be just what Solo and his family need to help them start over.

About this title

From the Author

Melissa Hart is the nonfiction instructor for Whidbey Island's MFA Program in Creative Writing. Her articles and essays have been published by the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, Writer’s Digest, and many others. Melissa currently resides in Eugene, Oregon, where she can hear western screech owls in her backyard.

Sky Pony Press, with our Good Books, Racehorse and Arcade imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of books for young readers picture books for small children, chapter books, books for middle grade readers, and novels for young adults. Our list includes bestsellers for children who love to play Minecraft; stories told with LEGO bricks; books that teach lessons about tolerance, patience, and the environment, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Review

In "Avenging the Owl," local author Melissa Hart deftly interweavesvaried topics such as classic film ­commentary, ­Japanese-Americaninternment, raptor care, depression, midlife crisis, Down syndrome --even script-writing. It is a story of transitions and of unexpectedallies.

The 13-year-old ­protagonist, Solo Hahn, advises us that "Labels are important. They show you where tofile things in your head so you can stay organized. "Owls" get filedunder death. File "fathers" under crazy. "Kids" go into the file marked"powerless." Thus challenged, so begins the journey of our young hero.Though his plight may not seem as epic as that of his "Star Wars"namesake, Solo reminds us, through his subjective voice, that thefrustration born of displacement is painful. Being uprooted from hissunny Southern California surfing lifestyle, and transplanted to coldand damp Oregon is one of several transitions Solo is making.

The teen years make this struggle to reconcile identity to place even more difficult. Adding insult tothe injury of Solo's family problems is his crime of passion -- injuringan owl (a symbol of fear of the new and unknown) in order to try andsave his kitten (the symbol of the comfort of his past). Solo then isforced to volunteer at a raptor center and care for the birds he is most scared of. He forges new relationships ­outside of his peer group as aresult.
Solo's somewhat brooding natureis tempered by his wit, as Hart breathes full-blooded resiliency intoSolo. His estrangement from his father and disappointment at hismother's return to her hippiedom -- signifying the alienation every child experiences to some degree when navigating the unfamiliar territory ofadolescence -- are wrought with a wonderfully endearing, quirky humor.

What makes Hart's novel so whole, so realistically complex, is that the young protagonist is not the only one fraught with the anxiety of displacement. Adding to Solo's struggle is the condition of his father, who is arguably the most vulnerable and precariously placed character in the story. Solo's difficultrelationship with his father ultimately reminds us that tenderness andempathy are the keys to true trust and friendship, and that true­friendship -- and by turns true love -- is not only what makes a placefeel like home, but that this sense of belonging is fundamental to truehealth and vitality, both individually and in family and community.
These tween through early teenyears, with such dizzying changes and transitions, are in many waysparallel to the societal and cultural changes most of us are goingthrough, ­regardless of age. In this sense, "Avenging the Owl" also canmake a great read-aloud for parents of younger teens.

"Avenging the Owl" gives tributeto our individual "wildness" while dealing tenderly with the oftenprecarious vulnerability inherent in that wildness. Local readers willfind the Eugene setting especially charming.

-- Charles Coxon, library assistant, Youth Services Department, Eugene Public Library

 

About this edition

• Publisher: Sky Pony
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1634501470
• ISBN 13: 9781634501477
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 224