The Owl Keeper (review)

Silver owls may have long been deemed extinct by the Higher Echelon, but when Maxwell Unger finds an injured bird with a luminescent glow on one of his nighttime walks, he immediately recognizes it as one of those fabled magical creatures. Max, terribly lonely after the loss of his beloved grandmother and already an outcast due to a strange medical condition that makes him allergic to the sun, takes comfort in nursing the bird. His quiet pleasure is disrupted when he meets Rose, a bossy young girl, who insists that the government is out to kill his precious owl and that Max's caretakers are really poisoning him in some sort of scientific experiment. When Max finally realizes the truth of Rose's assertions, the two take off with the silver owl to find the Owl Keeper and unite the owls and sages against the evil Higher Echelon. The post-apocalyptic setting is nicely done here, with hints that this is indeed our world gone horribly wrong: terrifying genetic mutants, eerily similar to familiar animals, haunt the night, a global climate disaster has made the season eternally winter, and an all-controlling government threatens to take over people's minds. Unfortunately, Max's inability to draw even the most obvious conclusions about the events that enfold him makes the first half of the book almost unbearably slow, and when the thrilling chase scenes finally arrive, readers may have already moved on, having long ago foreseen the rather predictable conclusion. Animal lovers and budding environmentalists, however, may enjoy Max's relationship with his owl and his eventual call to arms against the earth-destroying Echelon.