This month was a toss up between Mean Girls in Chapter Books or reviewing Owl Diaries. As much as I want to gush about the new mean girl characters on the chapter book block, people need to hear about Owl Diaries. There’s twenty books and a TV show now, so get out from under that rock and climb a tree. There’s a lot to hoot about.

Premise

Owl Diaries is an early chapter book series about Eva the owlet. Eva writes in her diary about the different events in her life. Usually school related. Usually friend related. Each book takes place over the course of a week or weekend. Eva learns lessons. They’re usually not forced. You get the picture.

Is this inspired by those other popular diary series? I don’t know. Most likely. Eva and the early chapter book format does a lot with it that you don’t see in those series, so it’s not lacking inspiration.

Characters

Eva Wingdale
Our owl main character. Don’t forget she’s an owl. That will matter later. Like Sophie Mouse and other early chapter book characters, she’s really nice. That’s about it.

Okay, she’s also very creative and has pets and helps others and all of those other nice main character traits. But she’s also an owl. Remember I told you not to forget that.

Humphrey Wingdale
Eva’s older brother. Crazy I know. You usually see younger brothers in these kinds of books. He’s generally written as an annoying older brother, making fun of Eva and just being a bother. He’s actually important in the latest book, so maybe he’ll get some more characterization.

Mr. & Mrs. Wingdale
Pretty prominent parents, all things considered. They’re even (kind of) the focus of a book. As parents go, they’re also very nice, but quick to remind Eva of the various lessons she learns.

Baxter the Bat and Acorn the Squirrel
Eva’s pets are the most prominent pets I’ve ever seen in a chapter book series. Baxter especially has more page time than a lot of characters in this section. He’s even the focus of two books. Acorn is newer and hasn’t had as much time to be on the page, but even Acorn was also the focus of the book he joined in.

What about them? Well, Baxter is a bat and Acorn is a squirrel. But Eva loves them a lot so we see them a lot. Like a lot a lot. Every book a lot. Baxter has some character, but it’s not much to write home about. He’s also nice, but is not an owl.

Mrs. Featherbottom (and Eva’s classmates of note)
Eva goes to school most of the time, so her teacher and the students in her class are around a lot. Mrs. Featherbottom mostly just drives the current plot by describing various school events. She gets married in one book though!

The other students in her class are actually not (that) one-dimensional. They all have names and (basic) character traits. Having school activities all the time means we actually get to see most of them in action a decent amount. Pretty cool. They’re also all owls (and all have pets!).

Lucy Beakman
Eva’s best friend. She lives next door to Eva (in another tree) and is generally nice. She is also an owl.

Sue Clawson
Oh wait, I still get to gush about a mean girl character. Sue is the token mean (owl) girl character in Owl Diaries and the best character in this series in my humble opinion. She’s actually a really deep character and gets less mean as the series goes on. Maybe the deepest mean girl I’ve read so far. High praise.

How can she claim such a prestigious award? She actually seems to learn lessons from certain books and maybe even kind of becomes friends with Eva as the series goes on. We find out that her mom is super busy as a fashion designer and her dad is (basically) nowhere in sight. She gets pretty lonely and mad because of these things. In book 18 she admits she’s never had a best friend. In another book Eva even says she’s only “Meanie McMeanerson” sometimes when she’s being mean. Sue still carries a lot of mean girl traits throughout the series, and is mentioned by another student to still be popular in book 19. She’s always very cocky and still thinks she’s better than her classmates a lot of the time. Mostly she just seems really proud of her own capabilities. She reverts to being mean for different legitimate reasons, like in book 9. Impressive character progression. I would not be surprised if she stops being mean altogether and they introduce another mean girl character later on. Book 21 is scheduled for next year, so we’ll see.

Series Breakdown

As usual with these longer series, I’ll just mention a few of the books of note:
(2) Eva Sees a Ghost – Probably still my favorite book in series, next to book 9. Really cool new character and way to introduce them.
(3) A Woodland Wedding – Best character Sue starts to become less mean.
(5) Warm Hearts Day – The obligatory winter holiday book. I like seeing how series handle this.
(8) Eva and the Lost Pony – The first book where we really see other animal cultures that aren’t owls.
(9) Eva’s Big Sleepover – I wrote a whole thing about this in my one year anniversary post. Go read it there. It’s about Sue.
(12) Eva’s Campfire Adventure – There’s a lot of cool puzzle solving. It’s more involved than most books.
(14) Eva at the Beach – Because we have to have a mermaid book, even in owl land! They handle it pretty well.
(15) Eva’s New Pet – Eva gets a new pet! Which I honestly wasn’t expecting because I thought she’d stick with just Baxter.
(16) Get Well, Eva – Lucy and Humphrey write in Eva’s diary while she’s in the hospital. They even change the handwriting font for Humphrey.
(18) The Nature Club – Sue admits she’s never had a best friend. This probably means she’s never had any actual friends either.
(20) The Owlympic Games – Humphrey does something of note.

Cool Stuff

Owl Puns
Remember how Eva is an owl? Here’s why that matters. Jokes are one of the main driving forces of Owl Diaries, and most of them are done by changing words to be about owls. Because they’re owls, get it?
I’m just going to list all the ones from book 1 and define them in non-owl terms. In the books, all of these are always highlighted in a different color and much bigger different font. Like how Thea Stilton does it.
Owliverse – Universe. Pretty weird, since we know other animals live in the forest. Owls don’t seem particularly full of themselves.
Winglish – The owl equivalent of English, like the school subject. Everyone seems to understand Winglish though, including non-winged animals, so odd choice of name.
Flappy-Fabulous – An adjective
Feather-Flappingly – Another adjective
Hoot – The excitement kind. Not sure if this one should count, since we use this in English.
Anyhoot – Anyhow. This one is kind of weird since “hoot” is used to mean a completely different thing without the “any” part.
Owladontist – Orthodontist
Screech – Yell. Another one I don’t know should count.
Hooting – Talking
Hooted – Not cheered, but similar.

Using the Diary Space (or Advanced Mariel Theory)
Owl Diaries takes consistency to the next level. A master class in consistency. Just read the first 11 pages free here and see what I mean.

Every book starts with the following:
Eva briefly explains the premise of the book.
Eva spends two pages talking about things she likes.
Eva spends two pages talking about things she doesn’t like. These mirror the likes.
Eva introduces her family with a new photo every book.
Eva introduces her pets.
Eva gives a few facts about owls.
Eva tells you her address, and that her best friend Lucy lives next door.
Eva introduces her school teacher and classmates with a new photo every book.

Every. Book. This takes up the entire first chapter. And these books only have like, eight chapters, on average.

All this makes a lot of sense in a diary format. Okay, maybe not all of it. I think Eva remembers where she lives and who her family is, but it’s kind of more of a scrapbook than a diary really. Owl Scrapbook doesn’t have the same ring to it though.

Every book also ends with a page of questions for the reader. Questions for reading comprehension and even activities. I’ve only seen this done in a few book series, so it’s always fun to see it again.

Sapience in Animal Fiction
Not to be confused with sentience (feeling versus thinking). For a series where most of the animals can think and talk, there sure are a lot of animals that can’t do that as much. Kind of weird. Kind of interesting. Any reason bats and turtles are significantly different than mice and sheep? Do you have to talk about bugs if they’re just normal bugs? At least in Dragon Masters and Star Friends the sapient creatures are one specific group for a specific reason.

We get a map of Treetopolis in one of the books (I can’t remember which one).
I think only Sophie and Ivy+Bean have ever shown maps of their areas. Maybe Itty Bitty Princess Kitty? How cool.

The owls wear shoes.
It took me twenty books to realize this. It makes sense given they wear other clothes. I guess I figured since talons are a pretty prominent owl thing, they would show them more often.

Conclusion

When a book IP gets a TV show, you know it’s popular. Not to mention twenty books. I always wonder if popular chapter book series scare people off. Either from the number of books or some sense that a popular thing can’t be good. Is Owl Diaries good? I like it, but I might recommend other series over it first. It is one of the more colorful early chapter books. The diary format makes it easy to read. It does some cool things that show it’s not just copying other popular series. Eva’s a likeable (if completely safe) character.

Maybe give “popular” series a try sometime. It’s not like you have to read all of them. Maybe start with Owl Diaries.

And never forget: