Owl at Home — Chapter 3

About This Passage

Selected because Lobel makes Owl grieve for things almost no one would notice. "Mornings nobody saw" is a beautiful phrase — it grants sadness even to a sunrise that had no audience. The copywork passage rewards careful attention to commas and quotation marks, and to the rhythm of three small sorrows building to "He cried and cried." Notice that Lobel never tells us whether Owl's grief is silly or noble. He just lets the small lost things speak for themselves.

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 decides to make tear-water tea on purpose. He has a kettle ready. He sits down with intention. The crying is not an accident — it is a recipe. What does this calm, prepared approach to crying tell us about how Owl thinks about his own feelings?
2. Owl's list of sad things is very specific and very small: chairs with broken legs, songs whose words have been forgotten, spoons fallen behind the stove, books with torn pages, clocks no one wound up, mornings no one saw, smashed potatoes nobody ate, pencils too short to use. Why this particular list? What kind of sadness do these items have in common?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide