The Owly Trilogy: A Collection of Adventure Stories for Children

By Orla Kelly

These short animal action and adventure stories set in a magic forest capture the very essence of childhood. Set in the world of forest animals who start off as strangers and enemies but who learn: to recognize the value of each other, the collective power of teamwork, about caring for and looking after each other, about the magic healing power

• Language: English
• Publisher: Prodigy Gold Books
• Release date: May 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9781939665478

Orla Kelly

Starting her career writing technical reports in the scientific and environmental fields, she never imagined writing anything else. However, having two children, a boy and a girl in elementary school, she found herself getting called upon to make up stories when they ran out of books to read or were simply bored. One night when her kids had nothing new to read, her son Michael started to write a story for his sister Emer about her favourite bedtime toy Owly, a pet owl. What he started to write, sparked an interest in writing after they begged me to write a story about Owly and his adventures. When I was asked about what makes this series different from other children's stories, Orla says, "As a mother, I strongly believe we need to nurture our children but yet equip them with life skills that will help develop them personally. These books are positive, uplifting and teach children through a story about bravery, overcoming challenges, looking out for each other, helping each other, appreciating all the good things in our lives, taking care of our environment and making the world a better place to live. Each book builds on the previous one and is set in the world of a bunch of unlikely forest friends. I really do believe that both young in age and young at heart will enjoy these imaginative and creative stories as much as I enjoyed creating them."

Book preview

1

Owly Rescues Lizzy Lizard

Owly was a little owl that wasn’t happy doing what other owls did. He was tired of sitting on the branch of a tree every day, just hanging out there for hours.

Not much happened in the sleepy forest where he lived. Even the animals didn’t do much. They just came out to eat and went back home again. No one talked to each other, knew each other’s name or cared for each other. That was until something interesting happened one day that was to change their lives forever.

This is what happened on that magical day.

It all started when Lizzy lizard fell off a tree while out climbing. She wondered if she could see beyond the forest, but as she stretched upwards, Lizzy got dizzy and took a nasty tumble.

Even though there were other forest animals close by, none of them came to help her. Owly was just about to fly down when he noticed something dangerous about to happen.

Victor Vulture, a deadly black beady eyed, sharp clawed bird was circling the sky slowly, getting lower and lower, closer and closer to poor Lizzy as she called for help.

Owly knew he had to do something, but what? He was not a fully grown owl yet and not powerful enough to go to battle with Victor. He needed to outsmart him or at least keep Lizzy safe before help arrived.

Even then, Lizzy’s mom and dad were no match for Victor and could be swooped away in an instant if Victor saw them.

You see, the animals in the forest developed a code when Victor was around. Any creature that saw him was to give a signal. That signal was that they would each change the sound that they make, so it would sound different and then each animal who would hear the signal would then pass it on through the forest, one animal at a time. This would give a warning, so all animals could hide, or at least be on guard when Victor was in the area.

However, the forest creatures had gotten lazy and no longer did this, so Victor was around a lot more now, swooping down and stealing away any misfortunate animal that didn’t look out for Victor.

Owly knew that if he didn’t act fast, Lizzy would be lunch – Victor’s lunch!

He flapped his little wings, sending soft feathers floating in the air, and off he went down to poor Lizzy. With his little beak, he shoved a leaf under her little body, and slowly he took the stem of the leaf in his beak. He carefully pulled her along the forest floor, towards a hole in the bottom of the tree that he used to hide his favorite things.

‘Lizzy you will be safe here.’ whispered Owly. ‘I will give Victor something else to do while I get help.’ Lizzy nodded.  ‘Don’t worry, you will be okay, I promise.’ Then he covered up the hole with leaves and twigs so it looked like there was no hole there.

The week before, Owly had found a piece of broken mirror and had given it to his Mom. She loved to look at herself, and had grown quite fond of that mirror, but now he needed it back for a while.

Luckily mother owl was really wise, and understood that it was an emergency, so off Owly flew clutching tightly to the mirror. He carefully passed it to Suzy squirrel, and asked that she hide and shine the mirror up towards the sun, in a gap in the forest that Victor flew over. It worked!

Victor could see something shining up at him, and it was blinding him and making him dizzy. At one stage he nearly hit a tree. He knew he had to be careful, but really wanted to see what it was that was flickering and shining from down below.

Owly knew that Victor would soon figure out it was just a mirror, and would come back for Lizzy, so he needed to get going fast. He had to get a message to Lizzy’s Mom and Dad, and also get some medicine for Lizzy.

Luckily Lizzy’s Mom and Dad had seen Victor circling in the sky, and had come to look for Lizzy when she didn’t come home.

Owly knew by the sounds they were making, that they were worried about him. He went down to them and flapped his wings in and out so that it looked like he was asking them to follow him.

He was hoping they would understand and luckily they did. They scuttled as fast as they could along the forest floor that was more like an obstacle course for the two lizards.

Getting to the tree first, Owly pushed back the leaves and let them in to Lizzy. She gave a weak cry and her mom and dad were crying too. Owly knew she was really ill.

He had heard stories throughout the forest about a Magic Medicine Tree. It was supposed to be hundreds of years old and the grandfather of all the other trees in the forest.

Being the first tree, it took in all the magic and beauty of the world round it, and created a forest. However the tree was very old now and tired. Nobody visited him anymore or asked for help.

The forest had grown too big, and nobody really cared about their fellow creatures, or about keeping the forest beautiful and enchanted, as it once was.

Owly had been told where the tree was, but it was far away, in the darkest part of the forest, in a place where everything sounded strange, and where the light only entered the forest for a short few hours a day. He couldn’t delay or it would be near dark before he got there, that is if he didn’t get lost or if something should happen to him.

He had to be brave. He had to teach the other animals that they needed to stick together, care about each other, care about the forest and make it a really home again. If it was beautiful and enchanted once, then surely it could be like this again?

But first things first, he needed to see if there really was a magical medicine tree and if so, could it and would it help him?

2

The Journey to the Magic Medicine Tree

Squashing a few bitter berries into his mouth, Owly set off zigzagging through the forest, going deeper and deeper where it was getting darker and darker.

The forest was changing. It sounded and looked different, and he was getting scared. He felt like something or someone was watching him, but couldn’t tell where from. ‘Keep going’ he kept telling himself.

His wings were getting more tired and feeling heavier and heavier. He was feeling sleepy and very thirsty, ‘just a bit more’ he kept saying to himself.

After what seemed like hours, and just when he was about