Guardians of Ga’Hoole book 1-8 – Kathryn Lasky Free Audiobook

Written by Kathryn Lasky
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps

Story

This series mostly follows the adventures of Soren, a young Barn Owl but later on follows Coryn, Soren’s nephew.

In the first volume Soren, who lives in a nest with his parents and siblings Kludd and Eglantine in a forest kingdom called Tyto (as in Tyto alba, the binomial of the species), is pushed out of the nest by Kludd as part of a disturbing initiation ceremony performed by the Pure Ones. Soren is then found and snatched by a patrol of the evil owls from the St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls, whose intent is to gain power with tiny particles known as flecks and control over all owl kingdoms in the world.

At St. Aggie’s, Soren and other snatched owlets are oppressed by the owls Skench and Spoorn and their followers. In order to keep the orphaned owlets from rebelling, they are given new number designations and are “moon blinked”, a brainwashing technique caused by marching under the light of the full moon and endlessly repeating their true names to forget them so as to lose sense of self and will. In addition to this, on certain nights the owls offer themselves up to vampire bats who drink their blood. This lessens the urge to use their wings and renders them flightless, thus lowering the rate of escape attempts.

While at St Aggie’s, the owlets are forced to pick apart pellets for mysterious magnetic particles called “flecks”. Soren and Gylfie do this as their job for part of book one.

Soren befriends a young Elf Owl named Gylfie (from the desert kingdom of Kuneer), who, like him, is resistant to the moon-blinking, 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 (from another forest kingdom called Ambala), whose small stature and maturity (despite being four years old, she still resembles an owlet) enables her to resist moon-blinking and rescue snatched eggs from suffering the same fate as the other students. She is eventually found out and is seemingly killed by being thrown off of a cliff by St. Aegolius’s Pit guardian, Finny.

Soren and Gylfie, however, manage to avoid being found out, learn to fly with the help of an adult imperfectly moon-blinked mentor named Grimble, and to escape with Grimble’s assistance. Grimble is murdered the night Soren and Gylfie escape. Soon they then meet Twilight, an orphan Great Grey Owl and a self-appointed graduate of 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 Mrs. Plithiver, Soren’s former blind nest-maid snake. With the help of Hortenses’s two Bald Eagle friends named Streak and Zan, they kill two of St. Aggie’s patrols, the cousins Jatt and Jutt. 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 works.

The second book tells of the four’s journey and discovery of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. There they meet Ezylryb, the grizzled old Whiskered Screech Owl who becomes Soren’s mentor, Martin, a tiny Northern Saw-whet Owl with extraordinary intuition, Ruby, a Short-eared Owl with incredible flying skills, and Otulissa, a pedantic bookworm Spotted Owl who idolizes Strix Struma, seasoned leader of the weather strikers. Later on, she joins “The Band” (Soren, Gylfie, Digger and Twilight), as they are called by many, on their many adventures.

In the third book, there is an incident where the Pure One’s young recruits are leaving behind their captive young owls, Soren’s sister Eglantine among them. Soren’s mentor, Ezylryb, suddenly disappears and Soren sets off to rescue him.