Guardians of Ga'Hoole: The Hatchling by Kathryn Lasky.
Title: Guardians of Ga'Hoole: The Hatchling.
Author: Kathryn Lasky.
Genre: Fiction, children's lit, YA, fantasy, adventure, animals.
Country: U.S.
Language: English.
Publication Date: June 1, 2005.
Summary: Ga'Hoole is victorious, but far from the great tree, in the bitter ashes of defeat under a full moon, Nyroc is born. And he will be bred to monstrous evil. Kludd is dead. Nyra, his mate, is determined that her hatchling, Nyroc, will fulfill his father's destiny: the vicious oppression of all the owl kingdoms. But Nyroc is a poor student of evil. A light grows in his heart, fed by scraps of forbidden legend and strange news of a place where goodness and nobility reign. He must summon all his courage to defy his destiny, and the embodiment of evil that is his mother.
My rating: 7.5/10.
♥ "Why do I see these things?" he asked Gwyndor.
"I don't know why."
"But are they true?"
"I cannot tell you."
"Cannot or will not?"
"Will not," Gwyndor replied reluctantly. "Because, Nyroc, if I tell you, you will not truly believe. Belief is found in one's self, in one's gizzard, in one's heart, in one's mind. It has no power if it is simply ordered like a command."
♥ "It will be our secret, Nyroc." She spoke with a desperation he'd never heard before. "You passed your Special ceremony. Isn't that great? So we cheated a little. I know you would have done it, given a little more time."
"You... know... nothing!" Nyroc said, slowly enunciating each word.
"Nyroc, you are my world. My entire world."
"If I am your world, it is a world I do not want to live in."
He then spread his tattered wings and flew. He clamped his beak shut against the pain of flying so nearly featherless. But he felt his will surge through his gizzard. So this is free will? he thought. It hurts!
♥ What was this thing called love? Was it knowing another being so well and trusting what you knew? A kind of believing in someone? Not believing because someone told you to, but believing because you discovered that belief in your gizzard, your heart, your mind, as Gwyndor had said? Yes, belief and love might be wings of the same pair, Nyroc thought. But there was one thing about love he was sure of and that was that love was stronger than hate. It had been Phillip's love for him that made him defy his mother. It had been his love for Phillip that had made him say he would never return to the Pure Ones. And perhaps it was love, or the promise of it, that drove him on in his quest for truth that seemed to be leading to his uncle Soren. Whatever love was, it had a power beyond anything he had ever imagined.