Nyroc, son of the wicked Nyra, the mate of Kludd, is born on the night of a lunar eclipse. Kludd is dead now and the Tytonic Union of Pure Ones is reduced to a small band of survivors. However, there is something in Nyroc's heart and gizzard that guards him against his mother's twisted teachings. And that brightness is fed by his only friend, Dustytuft, a Sooty Owl.

A day is nearing when Nyroc must choose to fulfill his destiny or to defy it. It will be a day of blood and terror. But doubt grows in Nyroc's heart, fed by strange forbiden legends of a great tree far away where noble owls live in peace. And a light dawns in Nyroc's gizzard, nourished by friendship.

I liked the book it was really adventurous. It had a lot of action it kinda made me feel like i was in the book. It makes it feel like your in the book. It was a good book it had a lot of action and adventure.

I loved this new POV of little Nyroc! Got The Capture vibes of a young owlet still learning about the owl universe and finding his place. Plus the slivers of Otulissa, which I'm also trying to figure out how their paths cross. Besides her, we didn't get much of an insight into the Great Tree and the Band, so I was just as curious as Nyroc about how life's been over there.

tYou’re a young barn owl. You have just found out that all your life you’ve been lied to. How would you feel? Well, this is what Nyroc, the main character in Kathryn Lasky’s The Hatchling, is going through.
tThe Pure Ones, a group of owls that believes only Barn Owls (most “pure”), Masked Owls and Grass Owls (“pure”), and Sooty Owls (slightly “pure”) are “pure”, as they call it, is hosting the Marking Ceremony (the cremation of a dead owls remains) for their fallen leader, Kludd, a Barn Owl, like all leaders of the Pure Ones. The only attendants are: Nyra, Kludd’s ferocious mate, Nyroc, Nyra’s somewhat pacifistic son, Dustytuft, a Sooty Owl, Nyroc’s best friend (who is often called Phillip by Nyroc), and Gwyndor, a Masked Owl, the Rouge smith (a blacksmith belonging to no kingdom) doing the cremation of Kludd’s bones. During the ceremony, Gwyndor notices that the reflection in Nyroc’s eyes. Gwyndor recognizes this as fire sight, the a talent that allows an owl to see events that have happened, are happening now, and events in the future as well as images and names. He makes an excuse about materials and leaves to consult the Rouge Smith of Silverveil, an artistic Snowy Owl who prefers to work with silver. She gives him a small number of special coals to build a fire with and show to Nyroc. When Gwyndor returned to the canyons, he did so, and the fire revealed to Nyroc numerous truths that had been concealed from him his whole life. Nyroc and Phillip left the next day to flee from the Pure Ones. Will they escape alive? Where will they go if they do? Read the book to find out.
tMy favorite part of this book was when Nyroc traded a mouse for the crows’ permission for day-flight. I like it because it shows that the nonnegotiable can be negotiated with.
tI would recommend this book to male or female fans of fiction, fantasy, action, owls, and adventure age 10 or older. There are a few graphic scenes, one of which trumps the others by far, that influenced this recommendation, but if blood and gore (mainly blood) doesn’t bother you, disregard this. Please note that this is book #7 in a 15 book series, so read books #1-6 first.

The name change and the significance of being good and not bad, but enjoyable symbolism.

The more I read, the more I like this series! The owls we started this journey with are grown now so new characters, new plots, and new drama is introduced...and it's my favorite book so far! It shows that there is more to a person (or in this case, an owl) than his parents' legacies, or his upbringing, or his skills or flaws. It's our choices, our instincts, our gut feelings (or in this case, our gizzard's), and how we use what he know and experience to become a better (or worse) person (or owl).

Nyroc, Nyra's son, has hatched. He is perfect at everything. He did all of his ceremonies, except one, Tupsi. Tupsi is murder with a cute name. He has to murder his best friend. Will he do it? No!

The hatchling was an excellent book. It was well paced and told an engaging story that really drew me in. With a limited cast and sharp focus, the author clearly knew where they were heading, and it avoided any silliness while also adding quite a bit of lore to the series. Its end is a setup for the next book, and definitely encourages the reader to carry on with the series. I hope this proves to be the benchmark of quality for the rest of the books, as it by far outshined everything before it.

This book begins the second "cycle" in the owl-centric Ga'hoole series. Soren & co. are all grown up, his evil brother and the Tytonic Order of Pure Ones defeated. Things should be looking up. Alas, the Pure Ones have a plan B, the titular hatchling who is Soren's nephew by Nyra, the Pure Ones' matriarch. Far away, in the barren canyons of what was once St. Aggie's, she is raising her hatchling to be the perfect soldier and to hate his uncle. But Nyroc the hatchling has a dangerous gift, one that threatens to ruin everything his mother has planned for him.

"The Hatchling" is every bit as brutal as the earlier books in the series (apparently you can get away with having a character kill a child and eat his heart if neither character is human), but there are spots (especially in the beginning) where the prose seems clumsy -- almost as though Lasky had forgotten how to write in this setting. Nyroc strays dangerously close to Marty-Stu territory, especially when compared to his uncle from the previous "cycle". Nyroc's superior flying skills make sense because of the way his mother raised him, and his fire-sight makes sense because this is a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by talking animals. I understand that a willing suspension of disbelief is required. However she takes great pains at one point to explain that Nyroc instinctually mastered acts and techniques which even a well-trained owl could have failed at, and that he does so the first time he tries them. The whole scene would have been richer and more believable had she simply described what he did without trying to contextualize it - the comparison makes him seem too perfect and that weakens both the story and the characterization.

Aside from that, this was a good entry in the series and prepares us for what i assume will be further exciting adventures.

It's also worth noting that this book discusses more about what happened to humanity than any previous book. We know humans existed because there were still a few shattered ruins dotting the landscape in previous books, but this one establishes that there was a (second) great ice age and that some of the mega-fauna may have survived it. Not a full explanation, but probably as close as we're going to get. It's almost as though the second ice age hit during the middle of the medieval period...or humanity had re-ascended to medieval levels of culture/technology before they disappeared for good. Interesting! And bleak!

I really didn't like the majority of the book with Nyroc and the Pure Ones. I even stopped reading it for several weeks because I could not get into his life with his mother. It didn't pick up for me until he left and then came back and then Philip died and then Nyroc left again and then he started seeing Otulissa and then it all got much more interesting again. I am very intrigued to see where it goes with the northern expedition and how Nyroc and Otulissa's stories will align.

Really good!

This series is supposedly for young adults but I'm enjoying them, regardless of how old I am. The owls are fascinating and, of course, their behavior is similar to all different types of people - in essence the old good vs. evil battle of legends. If you've read Harry Potter or Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series and enjoyed them, this is another good series to read. There are 15 books in the series but they aren't as massive as the HP books so they're easy to read one here and there. For a good read and a reassurance that good will eventually triumph over evil, these are an excellent set of books to read!

*may contain spoilers for previous books*

In the seventh main entry of author Kathryn Lasky’s Guardians of Ga’Hoole saga, which she dedicates to Maria Weisbin, the Pure Ones have lost their battle against Ga’Hoole, known as The Burning, during which the owlet Nyroc, son of the late Kludd and Nyra, is born, with the latter determined to raise her child as an evil minion. However, Nyroc isn’t exactly a top student of evil, and good grows in his heart upon his hearing of the legends of the Guardians, and thus, he ultimately rises to defy his parents’ intended destiny.

Early on, Nyra chastises her son for questioning the imprisonment of an owl, with the Pure Ones holding a ceremony known as the Marking, which is a final ceremony for fallen leaders. Nyra further wants Nyroc to participate in a murderous ceremony known as the Tytonic Union Pure Special Initiation, Tupsi for short, which she wants him to fulfill by killing his uncle Soren. Nyroc ultimately befriends another owl named Phillip, and overall, this entry is pretty much on par with its predecessors, which isn’t a bad thing, and aside from some occasional toilet humor and the oddity of human names alongside avian names, this is a worthwhile read.