Owl Books in Order

The Owl books are a different corner of Eric Blehm's work. Instead of soldiers, lost rangers, or avalanche terrain, they follow two wild barn owls, Molly and McGee, who choose a nest box in Carlos and Donna Royal's backyard in San Marcos, California. The setup is ordinary on paper, but once the owls arrive it turns into a close-up true story about nesting, parenting, and the small dramas of daily survival.

It is a backyard story, but it never feels small.

Molly the Owl is the natural place to begin. That book introduces Molly as she appears in the Royals' yard and settles into the wooden box, then follows the season as McGee joins her, eggs are laid, and the owlets eventually hatch and fledge. The cast stays manageable for young readers: the owl pair, their babies, and the family watching them from a respectful distance.

The setting matters a lot here. Because the owls nest beside a family home, and because a camera looks into the box, readers get to watch wild behavior that usually stays hidden. Feeding trips, long waits, sudden arrivals in the night, and the constant work of keeping chicks alive become the real engine of the series. That mix of closeness and uncertainty is what makes the books feel so inviting.

These are nature books, but they don't feel like homework.

The tension is gentle, but it is real. Will the parents return with food? Will the eggs hatch? Will the owlets make it safely into the wider world? Blehm keeps the language warm and easy, so the books work well for kids who love animals, families reading aloud together, and adults who want something true and calm without losing the sense that real things are at stake.

Molly & McGee works a little differently. It is more of a companion volume than a straight sequel, built around Carlos Royal's photographs of the famous owl pair and their family. That makes it less about plot and more about looking closely: feathers, expressions, the crowded life inside the box, and the odd mix of tenderness and toughness that comes with wild birds raising young.

Taken together, the two books form a small true-story series about attention. They show how an ordinary yard can become a window into the natural world, and how human caretakers can observe, protect, and document without pretending the animals are pets. If you start with Molly the Owl, then move to Molly & McGee, you get both sides of the experience, the story itself and the chance to linger over the details that made so many people care about this owl family.