Guardians of Ga'Hoole

Guardians of Ga'Hoole is a fantasy book series written by Kathryn Lasky and published by Scholastic. The series contains a total of 16 books and although originally intended to conclude with the 2008 publication of The War of the Ember, a prequel The Rise of a Legend was published in 2013. Apart from the main series, there are a few more books and spin offs set in the same universe. The first three books of the series were adapted into the animated 3D film mh:greatestmovies:Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, directed by Zack Snyder.

Guardians of Ga'Hoole

 * 1) The Capture (June 1, 2003)
 * 2) The Journey (September 1, 2003)
 * 3) The Rescue (January 1, 2004)
 * 4) The Siege (May 1, 2004)
 * 5) The Shattering (August 1, 2004)
 * 6) The Burning (November 1, 2004)
 * 7) The Hatchling (June 1, 2005)
 * 8) The Outcast (September 1, 2005)
 * 9) The First Collier (April 1, 2006)
 * 10) The Coming of Hoole (July 1, 2006)
 * 11) To Be a King (October 1, 2006)
 * 12) The Golden Tree (March 1, 2007)
 * 13) The River of Wind (July 1, 2007)
 * 14) Exile (February 1, 2008)
 * 15) The War of the Ember (November 1, 2008)
 * 16) The Rise of a Legend (2013)

Legends of Hoole- The story of the Ga'hoole tree

 * 1) The First Collier (2006)
 * 2) The Coming of Hoole (2006)
 * 3) To Be a King (2006)

Plot
This series follows the adventures of Soren, a young barn owl, for the first six books, but follows Nyroc, Soren's nephew, later renamed Coryn, for books seven through eight, and twelve through fifteen are books describing the Reign of King Coryn. Books nine through eleven are half-prequels to the other books, following the story of Hoole, the first king of the Ga'Hoole Tree.

Why They Are Guardians

 * 1) The idea of the owls in the fantasy style without human is interesting and unique.
 * 2) The Band are great characters:
 * 3) * Soren
 * 4) * Gylfie
 * 5) * Digger
 * 6) * Twilight
 * 7) There are tons of intense moments. The reason why owlets captured by St. Aggie's never grow proper wing feathers. They use vampire bats to suck out their blood every month. To say nothing of all the Mind Control used by them and the Pure Ones.
 * 8) Soren fighting against his brother Kludd for the last time. Soren's been cornered by Kludd and realizes that he has to kill the Pure Ones leader if they were to save all the owls, but he's also scared of killing his own flesh and blood. But he doesn't have to do it: Twilight does it for him.
 * 9) Plenty of epic and fun action scenes.
 * 10) The Pure Ones are amazing antagonist:
 * 11) * Metal Beak / Kludd serves as this in the first arc of the series. After he dies, his mate Nyra takes over for the second arc, which lasts the remainder of the series.
 * 12) * Nyra is the only recurring villain throughout all of the arcs (except for in the Whole Arc Flashback, of course), but they team up with other villains in each arc, who have about the same status in the story.
 * 13) The tear jerker moment where Nyra doesn't know how to truly love anyone. She might have loved Kludd, but it seems she just loved his violent nature. When Coryn asks Nyra if she loves him, she can't even say the words and Coryn doesn't understand her. Then she calls him "my love" to manipulate Coryn into doing his Pure One induction ritual. But she clearly doesn't see her son when she looks at him: she sees her mate Kludd.
 * 14) Punkie Night. There's this strange feeling of seeing owlets "trick-or-treating" for sweets by singing songs and stuff that makes you laugh and say "Awww!" at the same time. Then there's Blooking For Berries (which is definitely Bobbing For Apples), and the tricks they pull on other older owls. One example is putting honey in their nests so that it messes up their feathers. Otulissa is not amused.
 * 15) * Bonus points since this Ga'Hoolian holiday is a mix of Halloween and April Fool's.
 * 16) It does have a moment where Soren and the Band rest with masked owls and explain that they're finding the Great Ga'Hoole Tree. The female masked owl sneers at them and tells Soren that his parents would be ashamed of him for believing in the Guardians...until Mrs. Plithiver intercedes that she's ashamed that owls like her are blind spiritually.
 * 17) The War Of The Ember in the titular last book, no doubt. It has all kinds of animals in the kingdoms fighting against the Pure Ones in one last fight for justice. Especially when Soren offs both Nyra and Striga when the latter kills Coryn.
 * 18) * Even the puffins (birds who were seen as Too Dumb to Live to the owls) Took a Level in Badass by using frozen fish as weapons!
 * 19) Its animated film by Zack Snyder was good.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Some parts may contain violence for target audiences. To elaborate: The very first book contains attempted fratricide, brainwashing, child enslavement, some fairly graphic violence, and cannibalism.
 * 2) Unfortunately, there are a number of major plot elements that disappear entirely as soon as they lose relevance. St. Aggie's basically vanishes after The Siege, with no word to the fates of the hundreds of Brainwashed children it enslaved. Flecks also are almost never mentioned again after The Burning, despite their enormous significance in the early books.