Guardians of Ga'Hoole


Guardians of Ga'Hoole is a fantasy book series written by Kathryn Lasky and published by Scholastic. The series contains a total of 16 books and although originally intended to conclude with the 2008 publication of The War of the Ember, a prequel The Rise of a Legend was published in 2013. Apart from the main series there are a few more books and spin offs set in the same universe. The first three books of the series were adapted into the animated 3D film , directed by Zack Snyder.

Story

This series follows the adventures of Soren, a young barn owl, for the first six books, but follows Nyroc, Soren's nephew, later renamed Coryn, for books seven through eight, and twelve through fifteen are books describing the Reign of King Coryn. Books nine through eleven are half-prequels to the other books, following the story of Hoole, the first king of the Ga'Hoole Tree.

''The Capture''

, who lives in a nest with his parents Noctus and Marella and siblings Kludd and Eglantine in a forest kingdom called Tyto, fell out of the nest. When he cries out to his parents for help, Soren is found and snatched by a patrol of the evil owls from the St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls, or St. Aggie's. Soren and other snatched owlets are enslaved into tasks such as sorting eggs and pellets, for reasons they don't quite understand. Owls at St. Aggie's are "moon blinked", a brainwashing technique caused by sleeping under the full moon and also marching under the light of the full moon and endlessly repeating their true names to forget them so as to lose a sense of self and will. Soren befriends a young elf owl named Gylfie, who, like him, is resistant to the moon-blinking, by staying awake during full shine, and together they plot both to discover as much as possible about the true purpose behind St. Aggie's and to escape. The two also befriend a spotted owl named Hortense. They also find a partly moon-blinked boreal owl named Grimble and plan to escape with Grimble's assistance. Grimble is murdered the night Soren and Gylfie escape by St. Aggie's leader Skench the great horned owl and her lieutenant Spoorn the western screech owl. After escaping, they then meet Twilight, an orphan great gray owl who learned his survival instincts from the "Orphan School of Tough Learning", Digger, a burrowing owl, who lost his family to the St. Aggie's marauders and is extremely sensitive and philosophical, and the old Mrs. Plithiver, Soren's former nest-maid western blind snake. With the help of Hortense's two bald eagle friends named Streak and Zan, they killed two of St. Aggie's patrols, the cousins Jatt and Jutt the long-eared owls.

''The Journey''

The four owls form a band and fly away in search of the Great Ga'Hoole Tree, where legend says the great knight-owls live who are dedicated to doing good deeds and eventually find it. Soon after the band arrives at the tree, they begin their training as guardians and soon are proficient in their selected chaws, or classes, They also meet other owls, such as Otulissa, a spotted owl, Primrose, a northern pygmy owl, Martin, a northern saw-whet owl, and learn many secrets such as colliering, navigation, search and rescue and weather navigation. Ezylryb the old whiskered screech owl, the weather chaw ryb or teacher, becomes good friends with Soren. After a long period of time passes, hundreds of owlets are found abandoned in the middle of an uninhabited forest. Stranger it turns out, that all of them are "babbling of the purity of Tyto". Among these downed owlets, later called "The Great Downing", was Eglantine, Soren's lost sister. When she and the others regain full consciousness, they have no memory of what had happened, where they were from and why they were in the literal middle of nowhere.

''The Rescue''

When Ezylryb goes to investigate the area of The Great Downing and doesn't return, the Great Tree is unsettled. After a long while, the band goes to investigate the disappearance and seeks information of what could have happened. Octavia, Ezylryb's personal nest-maid Kielian snake and friend, gives them information that Ezylryb was also the famous warrior, Lyze of Kiel and has personal relationships with the Rogue Smith of Silverveil. Then, during the time of copper-rose rain, the band sneaks away during a week-long festival to go talk to the Rogue Smith in hopes they will not be noticed missing. When speaking with the Smith, they discover that the famous singer at the Great Tree, Madame Plonk, is the sister to the Smith and that there is a group of terrible owls known as The Pure Ones is led by Metal Beak. When they return to the tree, it appears that everyone noticed that they were missing and that Soren missed his sister's First Meat-and-Bones ceremony. Soon later, Eglantine begins remembering where she was at the time she was missing and tells the band that she remembers being in a castle during the imprisonment. Soren, Gylfie, Twilight, Digger, Eglantine, and Otulissa, called the Chaw of Chaws, go out to find the castle in hopes that Ezylryb's disappearance might be answered. After nearly giving up, the Chaw of Chaws finds a Devil's Triangle, a triangle made up of large caches of magnetic particles, or "flecks", meant to discombobulate an owl's sense of direction and trap Ezylryb inside. The chaw realizes that these caches can be destroyed by fire and destroys the Devil's Triangle. Just as they free Ezylryb, a group of Barn owls, part of the regime The Pure Ones attacks the Chaw, led by Metal Beak. The chaw picks up branches and sets them alight so that they can fight with fire, and part way through the battle, Martin, and Ruby, a short-eared owl, arrive. As the battle reaches its end, Metal Beak reveals his identity to the Chaw, now including Martin and Ruby, as being Kludd, Soren's evil brother. Soren, out of desperation, sets Kludd's mask on fire made of Mu metal, a soft metal that negates the magnetic powers of flecks, and he screams off as the metal melts on his face. Ezylryb and the Chaw of Chaws fly home and are met with cheering, and as daylight sets in, Ezylryb writes a poem of the impending war with the Pure Ones.

''The Siege''

Taking place immediately after the end of The Rescue, Kludd/Metal Beak has his mask still ablaze and he crashes into a pond near the hollow of Simon, a brown fish owl and a pilgrim from the Glauxian Brother's Retreat. After Simon nurses Kludd back to health, Kludd murders Simon and flies up to a branch with another local owl on it. However, the other owl is a spotted owl named Mist and is practically invisible. At The Great Tree, Dewlap, the burrowing owl Ga'Hoolology ryb declares the topic of Higher Magnetics and the book Fleckasia and Other Disorders of the Gizzard "spronk", or banned knowledge, which is crucial for the understanding of flecks and their effect on owls. Otulissa declares "Sprink on your Spronk" and causes Dewlap to faint on the spot. Soon after, The Chaw of Chaws is contracted to the task of infiltrating the St. Aegolious Academy for Orphaned Owls on the speculation that the Pure Ones have infiltrated the academy for its large supply of flecks, and in the same meeting, Ezylryb gives Otulissa Fleckasia and Other Disorders of the Gizzard. Before alighting from the island, Dewlap finds Otulissa reading Fleckasia and Other Disorders of the Gizzard and sentences her to the Flint mops, which is the Great Tree's way of punishment, yet Dewlap begins making Otulissa do things that a ryb would never be allowed to do to a student, like fetch her food like a slave. Otulissa goes with the punishment but eventually flies away to join the Chaw and as a result, Dewlap, "out of futile desperation", flings the book into the sea. Upon reaching St. Aggies, they are put through moon blinking sessions, but each of the owls has memorized a part of the Ga'Hoolian cycle, such as the fire cycle, the war cycle, and the star cycle. Not long after their arrival, they discover barn owls sneaking flecks out of the library, where all of the flecks at St. Aggie's. Due to Otulissa's ability to confuse one of the suspected infiltrators, she is brought up to the library to explain what Higher Magnetics is and from that, learns that one of the suspects is actually a double-agent for St. Aggies. Meanwhile, at the Pure Ones' castle, the Rogue Smith of Silverveil is hired to make battle claws for the Pure Ones' army and from the information blabbed out by one of their generals, she learns that the Pure Ones are planning to launch an attack on the Great Tree and she goes to tell Mist. At St. Aggie's, The Chaw of Chaws devised a plan to make the workers and the spies doubt each other to make them fight. During the commotion, Soren struck in the rear, damaging his rudder feathers and on the way back to the Great Tree, he became gravely ill. As Soren nears death, a local spotted owl named Hortense went to the home of Mist and told them of Soren and she brought a flying snake named Slynella who had venom that could heal illness. After Soren regains his health, Mist reveals that she is the original Hortense and that the Pure Ones were planning to attack the Great Tree. The Chaw flies off towards the great tree to warn them of the impending attack and realize the true size of the Pure Ones' forces, which number in the thousands. The story tells of Kludd's initiation into the Pure Ones, as it is learned that he maimed a Non-Tyto, killed a nest maid snake and attempted to kill his younger brother by pushing him out of the nest. At the Great Tree, Ezylryb gives a speech, quite similar to the speeches given by Winston Churchill during World War II, and the tree gets prep
om the Pure Ones.

''The Shattering''

Following the events of 'The Siege' - the story follows Eglantine who dreams of her parents possibly being alive. Soren, Gylfie, Twilight, and Digger discover a page from a book regarding the mysterious 'Flecks' - sending it to Otulissa to research. Eglantine eventually decides that her dreams of her parents are true, flying out from the Great Tree to meet up with her parents in the Beaks.

''The Burning''

''The Hatchling''

The hatching follows up on how Nyroc is raised and betrayed by his own mother it talks about how His best friend Philip is murdered by what he thought was his loving mother he flees the Pure Ones in fear and disbelief.

''The Outcast''

Nyroc casts off his old name and his old life, vowing to use his free will. He is then found and brought to Mist, the old seeing owl once known as Hortense. From her, he learns to read and write and is told the stories of Hoole and the wolves of the Beyond. On his way to Hoole he hears that a burrowing owl family has had their egg stolen by the Pure Ones and is determined to return the egg to them. Disguising himself as his mother's scroom, he rescues the egg and returns it to the family, in return they name the hatchling after Nyrocs new name, Coryn. He then believes that with his fire sight and the returned hatchling that he is to be the teacher of young Coryn, who he believes will be the new king. He then leaves to beyond the Beyond to learn about teaching the young Coryn, and learns about the dire wolves. After one wolf hunt, he eats at the carcass with a grizzly bear and allows the wolves to join only if they send the maimed wolf Hamish to eat first. He and Hamish become friends and he learns about the order of wolves that guard the Ember of Hoole and how only deformed wolves can guard the ember, receiving a wish of new life after their life of service. Back in Hoole, rumors spread of Nyras death, which she uses to her advantage and kills the smith of Silverveil, stealing her things and identity as a rouge smith. She then flies to the beyond to try to recruit owls for her army and Dire wolves. Striking an oath with a jealous clan of wolves who want the ember form themselves and main their own pups in the hope they will be chosen as guardians. Coryn then uses his firs sight to see his mother is near and to see the Ember of Hoole, which many believe makes him the rightful heir. He then realizes his destiny and dives into the volcano to retrieve the Ember. He succeeds and through much enjoyment of owls and wolves, Nyra enacts her plan to steal the ember and kill her son. Many of her old enemies return to save Coryn and try to push her into a rabid wolf, but she escapes. the Maimed wolves receive their wish of new life, all wishing to remain alive as wolves but with healed bodies. After goodbyes, Coryn flies to the Great tree to meet his family and be named king.

''The First Collier''

This book follows the story of Grank the first collier, how he met Fengo and found the Ember of Hoole!

''The Coming of Hoole''

The story follows the hatching and the early life of the first retriever of the Ember of Hoole.

''To Be a King''

''The Golden Tree''

The tree falls under the influence of the Ember of Hoole.

''The River of Wind''

Otulissa learns from Bess, the Knower, that there is a sixth kingdom in the world of owls. This discovery would mean much to owlkind. She rushes off to tell the Band about this new kingdom, which they come to know that it is known as Jouzhenkyn, or the Middle Kingdom. After they read Bess' letter, they all decide they should tell no one of this discovery yet except Coryn, their king. Soren, Gylfie, Twilight, Digger, and Otulissa, go to Coryn's hollow and tell him of this news. Coryn grows excited when the Band tells him that they get to go to the Palace of Mists first, a place very few owls know about, and even fewer have gone there. Soren's elderly nest-maid snake pleads the Band to let her travel with them, and they agree, so The Band, Otulissa, Coryn, Mrs. Plivither leave the tree without notice to go to the Palace of Mists. While they are gone, Pelli, Soren's mate, is shocked to find Bell go missing after a weather chawlet practice. Eglantine and Primrose, the aunt and godmother for the three B's, respectively, search for her for many nights, but they were unsuccessful in their search. At the Palace of Mists, Bess is relieved to find the Band there, but she is surprised to find Coryn there too, as she is not fond of much company and enjoys her solitude. For a few nights, the Band plus Otulissa and Coryn search the documents for any information for how to get to the Middle Kingdom, and what the place is like, and Otulissa also becomes quite fluent in the native language, Jouzhen. After finding a weather map that shows how to get across the Unnamed Sea, they bid farewell to Bess and take off with very little supplies as a "river of wind" will carry them across the tomorrow line. Along the way, they find frightening carcasses of dead birds caught in tornadoes which remind them to be cautious. When they find a qui line, a piece of red ribbon, they follow it and the night suddenly becomes the morning. They swiftly make their way to the Middle Kingdom, where a blue Long-eared owl named Tengshu greets them. Meanwhile, Bell is being tended to by another blue owl from the Middle Kingdom, an escaped dragon owl called Orlando, but he tells Bell to call him Striga and he lies about his origins. The Striga is being watched by some Pure Ones, who capture both Bell and Striga and take them to the Desert of Kuneer. There, with the help of a herbalist, they escape to the great tree and tell Doc Finebeak to get ready for an ambush in the Middle Kingdom, which was to be led by Nyra. In the Middle Kingdom, the Band and the others get word of the ambush plan, so they learn the way of Danyar, noble gentleness. They ultimately defeat Nyra and the Striga kills by spilling blood, against the way of Danyar, but since he saved Bell, the Guardians are indebted to him, so they take him back to the great tree where the Band and Coryn are welcomed back to the tree as heroes.

''Exile''

The Striga, a mysterious blue owl from the Middle Kingdom, gains control over young Coryn's mind. And then the unthinkable happens. The Band is banished from the Great Ga'Hoole Tree. The Striga institutes a harsh new regime that will not stop until learning itself- the very foundation of the tree- becomes suspect and books are burnt. Somehow the Band must open Coryn's eyes to the Striga's influence.

''War of the Ember''

The Striga and Nyra join to form an alliance against the Guardians. The Guardians call on all the animals to join them in the war to decide the fate of the six owl kingdoms.

''The Rise of a Legend''

An Owlet hatched on Stormfast Island and into a world torn by a massive war that has been going on for over 100 years. The Ice Talons are about to invade and the Kielian League will not be able to stop it. Soon the tyrant owl Bylyric will rule over the entire world. Only the small owl from Stormfast Island will be able to stand in his way from total victory. Lyze is not very impressive to look at but his wild and crazy ideas might be the only thing to stand in the way of the tyrant, but will the plan he made work?

Books in the series

''Guardians of Ga'Hoole''

  1. The Capture
  2. The Journey
  3. The Rescue
  4. The Siege
  5. The Shattering
  6. The Burning
  7. The Hatchling
  8. The Outcast
  9. The First Collier
  10. The Coming of Hoole
  11. To Be a King
  12. The Golden Tree
  13. The River of Wind
  14. Exile
  15. The War of the Ember
  16. The Rise of a Legend

    ''Legends of Ga'Hoole''

  17. The First Collier
  18. The Coming of Hoole
  19. To Be a King
The legends are a part of the Band's experiences. A spin-off series of three books were planned, titled Legends of Ga’Hoole. However, the books were not published as a new spin-off series; instead the books were moved to the original Guardians of Ga'Hoole series, with the titles unchanged. They were numbered as books 9, 10, and 11 of the series. The advance copy editions show the subtitle on the covers, although the final editions were not released with this feature. A prologue and an epilogue were added to each book—in which Ezylryb instructs the Band to read the Legends hidden in a secret room before dying in his hollow—so as to tie the books together with the main series. The reading of the Legends later becomes important, as they play a crucial part in Soren's mentality in The Golden Tree.
The three books—The First Collier, The Coming of Hoole, and To Be a King—are about the legendary young king Hoole the spotted owl, and his mentor Grank the older spotted owl, along with the pacifist Theo the great horned owl, the first owl blacksmith. Grank was the first to find the Ember of Hoole, and King Hoole was the first to find the Great Ga'Hoole Tree. Hoole came under the protection of Grank because his mother, Queen Siv, was a close childhood friend of Grank's. Hoole also works to stop the tyranny of these demonic birds of prey called Hagsfiends.
It is possible that the Legends of Ga'Hoole served as inspiration for the title of the movie adaptation , although the movie loosely covered only the first three books of the series and has no relation to the Legends.

Guide books

Two guidebooks were released to give readers more insight into the world of Hoole. They are narrated by Otulissa.
  1. A Guide Book to the Great Tree
  2. Lost Tales of Ga'Hoole

    ''Wolves of the Beyond''

Wolves of the Beyond is a spin-off series that includes the daughter of Gwyndor the Australian masked owl, Gwynneth, as a main character, as well as mentioning characters and events from the main series. They announce the death of Soren in the fifth book, Spirit Wolf, and tell the stories of the ending battle of the first series, Guardians of Ga'hoole.
This sequel of Guardians of Ga'hoole tells the story of Faolan, a dire wolf abandoned at birth because of a deformed paw, but saved from death by a female grizzly bear known as Thunderheart who had just lost her most recent cub to cougars. Faolan eventually becomes a watch wolf of the Ring of Sacred Volcanos, where special dire wolves guard the Ember of Hoole. When both the Beyond and much of the Owl Kingdoms are mostly destroyed by a cataclysmic earthquake, Faolan leads his friends, Edme, two grizzly bear brother cubs named Toby and Burney, a mother wolf named Caila and her pup Abban, an abandoned wolf pup named Myrrglosch, and two mated bald eagles named Eelon and Zanouche, and others to a land called the Distant Blue to begin a new life. At the same time, they are being pursued by an evil rout of rogue dire wolves led by the evil yellow dire wolf Heep. Faolan and Edme also discover that they are reincarnations of two great dire wolves from ancient times, lovers Fengo and Stormfast. Faolan finds that he is also, alongside Fengo, a reincarnation of a heroic grizzly bear named Eo and a female snowy owl gadfeather named Fionula, an old friend of Madame Brunwella Plonk.
  1. Lone Wolf
  2. Shadow Wolf
  3. Watch Wolf
  4. Frost Wolf
  5. Spirit Wolf
  6. Star Wolf

    ''Horses of the Dawn''

This series has a minor connection to Guardians of Ga'hoole as a standalone prequel and a historical fiction. Set during the Age of Discovery, it is a trilogy about a group of domestic horses who escape a human Spanish galleon leaving Cuba, led by a young filly named Estrella, who become feral and fight to stay alive in the new land of North America and seek out a new home of sweet-smelling grass that only Estrella herself can smell, where their ancestors evolutionarily originated, a valley somewhere along the western side of the Rocky Mountains called the Valley of the Dawn. She is orphaned because her mother Perlina is devoured by a great white shark after being thrown off the ship in the Caribbean Sea. Following the North Star, they travel far and wide north through the southern part of the continent - even finding Chichen Itza in the Yucatan Peninsula, Tenochtitlan on Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico, the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt pine-oak forests of migrating monarch butterflies, and even abandoned Puebloan cliff dwellings. They become known as the First Herd. It is similar to Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West by Deanne Stillman. They are later joined by an orphaned 12-year-old Native American human boy named Tijo, some escaped mules and donkeys, a female bald eagle named Tenyak, a female mason bee named Grace, and a young male nameless coyote who later names himself Hope - he is the son of an evil coyote trickster, sometimes called First Angry, who has often antagonized the herd, but Hope is not sinister like his father. While this is going on, they attempt to avoid and defeat a greedy and arrogant conquistador human going by the pseudonym El Miedo, a competitor of Cortes, briefly allied with an egotistical Andalusian stallion named Pegasus. In the second book, Star Rise, it is referenced that this series place long before Guardians of Ga'hoole for there is an oracular barn owl featured that mentioned to Tijo how things called Ga' and Hoole have not happened yet. This implies that Guardians of Ga'hoole takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where humans are extinct, the geography changed, and certain new species evolved. Also, just before the prologue of the same book, there is a quote from To Be a King. In addition, at the end of the third book, Wild Blood, when the crowd of animals finally reaches the legendary Valley of the Dawn, being led the whole time by the spirits of an Eohippus, a human girl called First Girl, and Tijo's deceased wise stepmother Haru of the Burnt River Clan People, it has just about the right connection to the ending of the sixth book in Wolves of the Beyond, Star Wolf, where Faolan, now back in his kind's original homeland, tentatively called the Distant Blue, with his team of both fellow dire wolves and other animals, finds a narrow green valley inhabited by American bison and horses; one of the horses, a creamy white individual with a face scarred from a wildfire, is stationed on a promontory just ahead of him; using the memories of his past life, the legendary ancient dire wolf named Fengo, he discovers that this horse also has reincarnated memories of a past life of its own, the equine recalling Fengo from the past, now seeing the ancient wolf reincarnated as Faolan.
  1. The Escape
  2. Star Rise
  3. Wild Blood

    ''Bears of the Ice''

This series is set during a time in the main series of Guardians of Ga'Hoole. Set in a faraway northern Arctic land north of the Northern Owl Kingdoms called the Nunquivik, a mother polar bear named Svenna is forced to leave her two cubs, temporarily nicknamed First and Second before they get proper names, to take their place in a twisted cult of polar bears, led by one called the Grand Patek, worshipping a mighty constructed clock, known as the Ice Clock, upon a tall glacier, thus they are obsessed with time in a more humanlike sense. This great-sized clock was originally only meant to help predict the second happening of a past glacial-melting event called the Great Melting. With the great mechanism no longer being treated as a tool but now as an idol, this cult abducts cubs and forces them to work inside the giant clock's gears, turning it until they either die or lose one body part without dying - these enslaved cubs are referred to by the cultists as Tick Tocks. Escaping the rude and secretly cannibalistic Taaka, their first cousin once removed, First and Second journey to find their long-lost father Svern, later joined by their second cousins Third and Froya. At the same time, the Grand Patek devises a master plan to even enslave the lands beyond the Nunquivik, even the Northern Owl Kingdoms. Svenna and Svern were both originally born and raised in the Northern Owl Kingdoms and thus know how to read and write. At one point in the first book it is revealed that Svenna knows the deceased Lyze of Kiel, or Ezylryb, and wonders what has happened back in the Owl Kingdoms since his death. It is also revealed that Svarr an Svenka, a clever polar bear from the time of Hoole who knew how to eavesdrop on others by listening through smee holes, were Stellan and Jytte's ancestors.
  1. The Quest of the Cubs
  2. The Den of Forever Frost
  3. The Keepers of the Keys

    Characters

Movie adaptation

A 3D computer-animated film adaptation of the book was released by Warner Bros. in 2010. Zack Snyder directed the film as an animation debut with Jim Sturgess, Geoffrey Rush, Emily Barclay, Helen Mirren, Ryan Kwanten, Anthony LaPaglia, and David Wenham voicing the characters.

Video game adaptation