Owl at Home — Chapter 1

About This Passage

Selected because Owl's three sentences contain his entire mistake in miniature. Notice how Lobel makes Owl's reasoning sound thoroughly reasonable: a cold thing wants warmth, kindness welcomes the cold thing, the conclusion follows. The mistake is buried inside the soft word "perhaps" — Owl is guessing about a knock that is not really a knock. The copywork lesson is in the structure of polite reasoning that ends in disaster, and in how Lobel uses dialogue formatting to set off Owl's thoughts as he talks himself into trouble.

Narration Prompt

In your own words, tell the story of this chapter. What were the most important moments? What made them important — and how do you know?

Discussion Questions

1. Owl opens the door TWICE before he decides to invite Winter in. Each time he sees "only the snow and the wind." Why does Owl need both confirmations of nothing-at-the-door before he turns the wind into a guest? What does the repetition tell us about how Owl reasons?
2. Owl's mistake comes from his best quality — kindness — applied to the wrong thing. Is this a story making fun of kindness, a story warning about it, or a story trying to teach us how to be kind better? What in the text supports your reading?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide