The official logo for Guardians of Ga’Hoole |
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Author | Kathryn Lasky |
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Illustrator | Richard Cowdrey |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Fantasy |
Publisher | Scholastic Corporation |
Published | 2003-2008 |
Media type | Print (Paperback) |
No. of books | 15 |
Guardians of Ga’Hoole is a fantasy book series written by Kathryn Lasky and published by Scholastic.[1][2][3] The series, which ended in 2008 with the publication of The War of the Ember, has a total of fifteen books. Apart from the main series there are a few more books and spin offs set in the same universe. The first three volumes of the series have been made into an animated 3D film Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, directed by Zack Snyder.[4]
Contents |
This series mostly follows the adventures of Soren, a young Barn Owl but later on follows Nyroc, Soren's nephew.
In the first volume, The Capture, Soren, who lives in a nest with his parents and siblings Kludd and Eglantine in a forest kingdom called Tyto, is pushed out of the nest by Kludd. When he cries out to his parents for help, Soren is found and snatched by a patrol of the evil owls from the St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls, or St. Aggie's. Soren and other snatched owlets are enslaved into tasks such as sorting eggs and pellets, for reasons they don't quite understand. Owls at St. Aggies are “moon blinked”, a brainwashing technique caused by marching under the light of the full moon and endlessly repeating their true names to forget them so as to lose sense of self and will. Soren befriends a young Elf Owl named Gylfie (from the desert kingdom of Kuneer), who, like him, is resistant to the moon-blinking, and together they plot both to discover as much as possible about the true purpose behind St. Aggie's and to escape. The two also befriend a Spotted Owl named Hortense who has stunted growth and delayed development of her flight feathers. This enables her not only to pass herself off as an owlet, resist moon-blinking and rescue snatched eggs from suffering the same fate as the other owlets. She is eventually found out and is thrown off of a cliff by a St. Aggie's pit guardian, Finny. Soren and Gylfie manage to resist moon blinking, learn to fly with the help of an imperfectly moon-blinked owl named Grimble, and to escape with Grimble's assistance. Grimble is murdered the night Soren and Gylfie escape by Skench and Spoorn. After escaping, they then meet Twilight, an orphan Great Grey Owl who learned his survival instincts from the "Orphan School of Tough Learning", Digger, a Burrowing Owl, who lost his family to the St. Aggie's marauders and is extremely sensitive and philosophical, and the blind Mrs. Plithiver, Soren's former nest-maid snake. With the help of Hortense's two Bald Eagle friends named Streak and Zan, they kill two of St. Aggie's patrols, the cousins Jatt and Jutt. The four owls form a band and fly away in search of the Great Ga'Hoole Tree, where legend says the great knight-owls live who are dedicated to doing good deeds and eventually find it. The story continues with their encounters with the Pure Ones until the end of the series in the 15th book, The War of the Ember.
The legends are not part of the band’s experiences. A spin-off series of books was planned to begin, entitled "Legends of Ga’Hoole". However, the series was canceled, and all books that were planned as part of the series were moved to the original "Guardians of Ga’Hoole" series, with the titles unchanged. The advance copy editions show the subtitle on the covers, although the books were not originally released with this feature. The three books—The First Collier, The Coming of Hoole, and To Be a King—are about the legendary young king Hoole, and his mentor, the first collier, Grank, along with the pacifist Theo. Grank was the first to find the Ember of Hoole, and King Hoole was the first to find the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. Hoole came under the protection of Grank because his mother was a close childhood friend of Grank’s.[5]
The movie was made in 2010 by <ref="Warner Brothers">[1]."
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