Ledgend of th Guardians
This series mostly follows the adventures of Soren, a young Barn Owl but later on follows Coryn, another Barn Owl related to Soren.
In the first volume Soren, who lives in a nest with his parents and siblings Kludd and Eglantine in a forest kingdom called Tyto, is pushed out of the nest by Kludd. 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 befriends a young Elf Owl named Gylfie (from the desert kingdom of Kuneer), 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 kingom 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 nestmaid snake. With the help of Hortenses's two friends, bald eagles 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.
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, Ezylyrb, suddenly disappears and Soren sets off to rescue him. Kludd, his mate Nyra, and the Pure Ones besiege and attack the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. Soren pentrates into St. Aggie’s and finds the magnetic principles behind flecks (as well as the flecks' ability to inflict pain upon owls). He discovers that Hortense was not killed, but is now working with the Bald Eagles Streak and Zan. The Pure Ones are an evil group of owls consisting only of owls from the Tyto family, with Barn Owls being the highest ranked and Sooty Owls being the lowest.
In the middle of the war, Eglantine gets fleck-brainwashed by Kludd, also known as High Tyto and Metal Beak, into thinking that her mother is alive and the family will reunite and becomes his spy. Eglantine behaves strangely and Soren and his friends vow to find out what is wrong with Eglantine. After consulting with her best friend Primrose, they presume to be from the Northern Kingdoms leading a battalion, and in the confusion, smash Kludd and Nyra’s egg (which was set to hatch during the coming eclipse and fulfill a prophecy of evil or good). Kludd continues to battle against the Guardians of Ga’Hoole for control of their tree.
Soren and the rest of The Band are then sent to the mysterious (and cold) Northern Kingdoms to gather allies and learn the art of war in preparation for the coming battle against the Pure Ones. After adventures with the monks and recruiting people, Gylfie is kidnapped by pirates and later rescued. Afterward, a great battle is fought in which Twilight impales Kludd with an Ice sword, killing him instantly, and Kludd’s only egg, Nyroc, hatches on the eclipse.
Kludd’s mate Nyra trains Nyroc, who later changes his name to Coryn. Soren later tells Coryn the truth about his father, but Nyra continues to tell false stories of glory and a certain hate for Soren into Nyroc’s small mind. Nyroc is a great student of the evil arts; evil grows in his heart, fed by Nyra’s tales of false glory and power. But his friend Phillip, also known as Dustytuft, has told him of legends and strange news of a place where good owls retaliate. He summons all his courage to defy his mother and flees, haunted by the scroom of his dead father. Nyroc later exiles himself from the Pure Ones. To prove himself to the Guardians of Ga’Hoole, Coryn ventures to Beyond the Beyond: A barren and rocky landscape inhabited by dire wolves. Nyra finds him there and tries to stop him from obtaining the Ember of Hoole but Uglamore, a former Pure One lieutenant who deserted the Pure Ones sacrifices himself to save Coryn. Boron, the king, and his mate, Barran die before Coryn arrives at the tree and Coryn is made the new king. When Ezylryb is about to die, he tells Soren and the young king Coryn to read the Legends of Hoole hidden in his private library. Shortly after Soren and Coryn finished reading the legends, a golden age begins dawning at the Great Tree. Meanwhile Coryn, haunted by the suspicion that haggish blood flows in his veins, hunts for the truth.
His wanderings imperil himself and the Guardians who travel with him as they discover a mysterious "Sixth Kingdom" where blue owls live. The blue "dragon owl" known as the Striga, who had aided the Guardians in the Middle Kingdom, betrayed and entranced Coryn. The band is exiled (through creating malicious rumors about them) and the Striga starts gaining power. Books are burned, and fear is rampant throughout the owl kingdoms. There is a battle that takes place between the Blue Brigade (the Striga’s followers) and the Guardians of Ga’Hoole. Otulissa loses an eye, and is visited by Cleve (a doctor from the Northern Kingdoms with whom she has a crush on). With his firesight, Coryn sees his evil mother, Nyra and the Striga somewhere in the Northern Kingdoms, plotting their attack against the Ga’Hoolian owls in order to take power of the Ember of Hoole. An ancient evil awakens in the deep ice caves of the northern kingdoms. Nyra teams up with the Striga to create an army of hagsfiends and take over the owl world, while Coryn and the band form an army against Nyra and the Striga, consisting of seagulls, owls, wolves, polar bears, and puffins. Along the way, Twilight discovers his two lost brothers.
In the final battle of the War of the Ember, Coryn returns the Ember to the volcano from which he had retrieved it and uses a decoy to lure Nyra, who has now turned into a hagsfiend, and the Striga to the rim of a volcano. Distracted by the decoy ember, Soren plunges an ice spinter into Nyra’s heart and she dies. The Striga fatally wounds Coryn by slicing off his wing. He soon dies from blood loss, but not before Soren slices off the Striga’s head with the battle claws of Ezylryb. A new constellation in the shape of Coryn’s face (without the scar Nyra gave him) appears in the sky and Soren is made the new king of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, though unembered.
