Would it have been an issue if it was four guys?” After all, I’d known plenty of guys our age who’d slept with twice as many girls. Double standards were the worst. Little Hoot is such a fun story, it features a little owl who wants to be like his friends and not a night owl like his parents want him to be. Both my kids loved it and the role reversal in the story. The Barn Owls So if all the scientific evidence supports the idea of flexible schedules aligned with our individual sleeping patterns, why aren’t we there yet? Employers have long been hesitant to allow their employees to work flexibly and remotely, though this attitude has been undermined by the sudden shift to online working that the coronavirus pandemic has required.

Our favourite non-fiction picture book author Gail Gibbons has a beautifully illustrated book all about owls. Perfect for you to share with your toddlers and preschoolers and learn a bit more about these fantastic creatures. National Geographic Readers: Owls It’s available in illustrated hardcover format. Several reviewers said that the photos were beautiful but not printed well. One reviewer said that the book includes “minimal factual information.” Pros and Cons of The Enigma of the Owl: An Illustrated Natural History byMike Unwin(Author),David Tipling(Photographer),Tony Angell(Foreword) ProsThis non-fiction picture book covers owls’ habitats, birth and development, threats and predators, and diet. If you’re a fan of contemporary and looking for a book filled with romance and friendship and family, look no further because this has it all and more. Bennett does an amazing job of weaving a captivating story filled with wonderful characters, and a story you’ll absolutely love. Plus, it’s low on drama and that is always a bonus in my reading life! We’re brainwashed to believe that early birds are happier, more successful, more disciplined and all-round better human beings than night owls. The hours when I feel most alive are considered ‘ungodly’ and likened to a vampire’s schedule. Owls like myself internalise this message, and we believe we must be lazy, depressed and irresponsible.”

While I largely enjoyed most of the book, I did have some trouble connecting to a few of the characters. Elly was the hardest for me to connect to, and I found myself not enjoying the chapters from her point of view as much as I enjoyed chapters from Val or Chaz’s point of view. While we learn a lot about Elly’s past, I just could never get a feel for her character, other than she’s had a hard life and isn’t very good socially. Chaz and Val, on the other hand, were much easier for me to connect to, and I loved their chapters. I loved seeing how their relationship as vampire and Renfield works. There is a lot of unspoken emotion between them, and I can’t wait for the day that it all comes out. Of the other characters who don’t act as narrators, I’m most interested in Justin. He goes through a lot of changes in this book, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how he adjusts.Opening Sentence: Father Value had taught Elly everything she knew about living to see another day. So why do night owls exist? There is no single universally accepted theory, but evolutionary biologists think that communities with more variation in chronotypes may have been more likely to survive. If not everyone needs to sleep at the same time, then some members of the tribe can stand guard and protect those who are resting. I'm glad for the frank discussions about sex and the message that you are not defined by how many people you've slept with: Earth to Beatrix. This was the night bus, not a Journey song. Two strangers were not on a midnight train going anywhere." The first half of the book the plot was tight and exciting, but somewhere after the midway point, the book became a bit scattered and I wasn't quite as engaged. It felt like the plot presented too many story lines and at the end, I was left with so many unanswered questions. Even though there isn't a cliffhanger, there wasn't a lot of resolution. I still didn't know what was in the book and whether the information was lost, I didn't understand what was going on with the other vampires, I wanted desperately to know what happened in the past between Cavale and Elly, and I wanted to know more about the relationship between Chaz and Val. There were far too many loose threads for my taste.

Night Owls is so much fun! The writing is fast, the characters are witty, the ending left me wanting more. Night Owls definitely captured the addictive quality of the urban fantasy genre. Another theory is that variation is simply how genetics works. Colin Espie, professor of sleep medicine at the University of Oxford, says this mirrors differences in hair, eye and skin colour, or height. “It’s a bit like any other biological characteristic. There’s a normal distribution, so there are people on both extremes – and the majority of people are neither.” Overall, this is a promising first book in a series, filled with action and moments of humor. The issues I had were not enough to make me want to give up on the series. In fact, the way it ended left me very curious to see what’s going to happen in the next book. I’m looking forward to seeing what else Lauren M. Roy has to offer!

All genres:

The large cast kept me from falling entirely in love. They were appealing character types, but there were so many main characters to be sold on at once. (Especially when almost all of them have at least a little mysterious past to be revealed.) I would've preferred a tighter focus in NIGHT OWLS, perhaps just on Valerie and Elly, to be expanded in the future books of the series. By the same author as above Little Owl’s Night puts a fun spin on the classic bedtime stories as this little owl talks about all the curiosities of the night But, sadly, these are not enough on their own. It's great that we're starting to see more YA books promoting healthy attitudes towards sex. I'm just still waiting for some really good ones. But Professor Espie thinks the tide is turning. When he first qualified as a doctor 40 years ago, exercise, smoking and diet weren’t taken seriously by the medical profession. “No self-respecting doctor would run clinics encouraging people to lose weight or get fit,” he says. “For many years, we’ve been advocating for sleep and it’s been falling on deaf ears. But nowadays there’s a lot being written about sleep in the media and it’s coming into the public consciousness. That’s hugely important.” Oh, and those lesbian succubi? It's not what I thought. They are awesome, and in a healthy non-gazey relationship. So relieved, and also delighted.