Award-winning author Kathryn Lasky began several years ago to inquire into the lives and behaviors of owls—what they eat, how they fly, how they situate and build their nests. She had planned to write factual books accompanied by photographs, but what eventually emerged were a number of fantastic stories about the owl world titled The Guardians of Ga’Hoole.
The series contains 15 volumes and follows the adventures of young barn owls as they grow up among war, enchantment, and shifting allegiances. The series is published by Scholastic.
Although the stories are of a fantasy world where owls speak, think, and dream, the author tried as much as possible to incorporate details of how owls actually live. Thanks to film director Zack Snyder, who adapted the story into the movie Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, her stories now celebrate success around the world.
In cooperation with Czech house Mladá Fronta, The Epoch Times spoke with Lasky about her inspiration.
ET: Is the legend about Guardians of goodness connected with some real legend about powerful guardians of the world?
KL: The legend of the Guardians does not have a direct connection with any specific true-life legend. It is however derivative on many legends in literature—certainly the Arthurian legends. The Guardians are indeed like knights pledged to defend those imperiled, to make strong the weak, mend the broken. The Great Ga’Hoole Tree where they live is a kind of counterpart to King Arthur’s roundtable.
ET: Why do you like owls so much and why are you interested in their world?
KL: I am not really a bird person, but owls have always intrigued me. I think it is their eyes. Unlike other birds, other animals really, owls’ eyes are very large in proportion to the rest of their face. And their eyes face forward unlike other birds‘ eyes, which are on the sides of their heads. This I think makes owls very compelling. They just draw you in. They certainly drew me in. But there are other features as well. Their ability to fly so silently and the fact that they are nocturnal, I think, adds to their mystique.
ET: What is your motivation for writing and from where do you draw inspiration?
KL: I write because I imagine. I am always imagining other worlds, other people or creatures in those worlds. I draw my inspiration from everywhere. I love history. So I have written quite a bit of historical fiction. We had a terrible event in [America] over 300 years ago. It was the Salem witch trials where innocent women were condemned as witches and hung. This all happened in my own backyard of Massachusetts ... I always wondered what it might have been like to be a young girl in the year 1692 and have your mother accused of being a witch. How would you survive this? So I did a lot of research and wrote a book ... The book is called Beyond the Burning Time.
ET: What do you intend to tell to the readers through your books?
KL: I really am not the kind of author who writes with an instructive or a moral intention. I would much rather provoke a reader to ask a question than to answer one, or deliver a message. If I can evoke wonder in a reader, trigger a reader to ponder something more deeply, [then] I feel that I have succeeded.
My tales do not have to come true to have value. … A book is really just a pile of paper until a person opens it and begins to read it. At that moment a book, a story can become real. And that is reality enough for me and it is my only dream I think.
The series contains 15 volumes and follows the adventures of young barn owls as they grow up among war, enchantment, and shifting allegiances. The series is published by Scholastic.
Although the stories are of a fantasy world where owls speak, think, and dream, the author tried as much as possible to incorporate details of how owls actually live. Thanks to film director Zack Snyder, who adapted the story into the movie Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, her stories now celebrate success around the world.
In cooperation with Czech house Mladá Fronta, The Epoch Times spoke with Lasky about her inspiration.
ET: Is the legend about Guardians of goodness connected with some real legend about powerful guardians of the world?
KL: The legend of the Guardians does not have a direct connection with any specific true-life legend. It is however derivative on many legends in literature—certainly the Arthurian legends. The Guardians are indeed like knights pledged to defend those imperiled, to make strong the weak, mend the broken. The Great Ga’Hoole Tree where they live is a kind of counterpart to King Arthur’s roundtable.
ET: Why do you like owls so much and why are you interested in their world?
KL: I am not really a bird person, but owls have always intrigued me. I think it is their eyes. Unlike other birds, other animals really, owls’ eyes are very large in proportion to the rest of their face. And their eyes face forward unlike other birds‘ eyes, which are on the sides of their heads. This I think makes owls very compelling. They just draw you in. They certainly drew me in. But there are other features as well. Their ability to fly so silently and the fact that they are nocturnal, I think, adds to their mystique.
ET: What is your motivation for writing and from where do you draw inspiration?
KL: I write because I imagine. I am always imagining other worlds, other people or creatures in those worlds. I draw my inspiration from everywhere. I love history. So I have written quite a bit of historical fiction. We had a terrible event in [America] over 300 years ago. It was the Salem witch trials where innocent women were condemned as witches and hung. This all happened in my own backyard of Massachusetts ... I always wondered what it might have been like to be a young girl in the year 1692 and have your mother accused of being a witch. How would you survive this? So I did a lot of research and wrote a book ... The book is called Beyond the Burning Time.
ET: What do you intend to tell to the readers through your books?
KL: I really am not the kind of author who writes with an instructive or a moral intention. I would much rather provoke a reader to ask a question than to answer one, or deliver a message. If I can evoke wonder in a reader, trigger a reader to ponder something more deeply, [then] I feel that I have succeeded.
My tales do not have to come true to have value. … A book is really just a pile of paper until a person opens it and begins to read it. At that moment a book, a story can become real. And that is reality enough for me and it is my only dream I think.
About Kathryn Lasky
The author lives with her husband, Christopher Knight, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In her free time she and her husband sail on the sea in a ship named Alice.
Lasky is the author of numerous books, fiction and nonfiction. Among her novels are “The Night Journey,” winner of National Prize for Jewish Literature, Beyond the Burning Time, for which she won the ALA Best Book for Young Readers, True North: A Journey to the New World, Dreams in the Golden Country, and Porkenstein.
