The Boy and the Snowy Owl

Leo, an eight-year-old with curly black hair and freckles, lives in a small town at the edge of the far north where winter settles in early and stays for months. When his teacher assigns the class to pick an Arctic animal and find out how it endures the cold, Leo instantly knows his choice: the snowy owl. Dressed in his blue jumper and mustard yellow scarf, he walks through the crunching snow to the library, where a large picture book about the Arctic shows an owl with huge round yellow eyes that seem to look right back at him.

Reading on, Leo uncovers the owl's four secrets: soft, thick feathers that wrap even its legs and toes and hold in warmth, sharp yellow eyes that detect small prey across the snow in dim light, broad wings that glide silently over frozen ground, and white feathers with faint speckles that let the bird blend into snowy hills and icy rocks. He records drawings and notes, then makes a classroom poster with paper feathers and a painted Arctic sky. This tale by Çınar BİBER can be read on Masalcı Baba.