Monthly letter from Kathy Lasky

So how’s it going in school? Do you like your teachers? Or Not? For all the children in New Orleans and Mississippi, a special hello and my heart really goes out to you. Despite all the news reports what you are going through is really unimaginable to most of us. I really salute your courage. You are true Guardians in the best Ga’Hoolian sense.

Well I’m back in school too --sort of. I mean I’m back from the island we go to in Maine and am sitting at my desk at 8:30 every morning working really hard with no breaks to go swimming. So here is the weirdest thing that happened to me this summer: I was chased by a pig!! Yes it is true. I like to go jogging on our road on the island. So there I was jogging along happily, sweatily while thinking up new ideas for the Guardians of Ga’Hoole, specifically a new rap for Twilight to sing in battle and all of a sudden I hear this sort of odd snuffling sound. I look over my shoulder and what do I see but a fairly large porker about one hundred feet trotting behind me. At first I was really scared because I thought “could this be a wild boar?” I know that wild boars can be very dangerous. They can even kill people. But this pig I soon realized was pink, dirty pink and not that bristly dark gray that one thinks of with wild boars, and thankfully no tusks. But the pig was picking up speed. So I wondered can I out run a pig? Talk about wanting a nice set of owl wings at a time this this!. Well, to make a long story short I did outrun him a bit. I ran right into the house on the road and burst into their kitchen shouting” Do you guys have a pig?” They did and they went out and rounded him up. I know this is no great accomplishment --out running a pig-- but keep in mind I am over fifty years old.

Okay, I think I promised to say something about book # 9. It is called the First Collier and it cycles way back in time, to that time before there was ever a Great Ga’Hoole Tree. I don’t want to give away anything but let me just say that a certain very distinguished owl, an elderly owl, urges Soren and his nephew Coryn to read the ancient legends of Ga’hoole--the true legends recorded by those who lived them--that have been hidden in a private library within the Great Ga’hoole Tree. It is only by reading these legends that Soren, his nephew and The Band will learn the great promise and the great danger the future holds. Together Soren and Coryn and later Otulissa, Gyflie, Digger and Twilight begin to read the first three ancient volumes to find tales of heroism and treachery, of nobility and exile unfolding in a time of chaos, violence and nachtmagen. Yes, there is a danger worse than flecks. It is a powerful magic called nachtmagen and it belongs to creatures far worse than the Pure Ones. It belongs to the hagsfiends! The owls are guided through this strange and ancient time by the words of Grank, the First Collier. I’m not exactly sure of when this first book will be available but I think sometime in the early spring.

So keep reading and again to those very brave kids in New Orleans and Mississippi I shall keep you in my thoughts and prayers.

Until next month.

Sincerely,
Kathy