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True stories are always hard to review. Stories about animals? Even harder. Wesley the Owl is going to be a tough one.

One thing I'm beginning to notice about all these "My Pet & Me" books hitting the market is the fact that a lot of them are written by writers, meaning people that actively write for a living. Wesley the Owl was not. O'Brien is a biologist first and foremost. Obviously she has some skill as a writer because she's had to research and write papers in order to earn her degree, but it was evident in the book that creative writing was not her forté. Despite that I still enjoyed the book immensely and it was still well-written.

From the moment O'Brien writes about looking down on the tiny, fluffy Wesley and immediately falling in love with him the reader falls in love too. Being both a scientist and an owl mom O'Brien highlights all of Wesley's unique quirks and traits in astonishing detail so we begin to know him intimately. She also doesn't hesitate to talk about the gross stuff either, thank God books don't smell or I would have been gagging at a lot of parts.

Throughout Wesley's story Stacey also talks about owl facts and various animal behaviors, taking advantage of informing and educating involved readers. A couple of times she does reiterate herself, but thankfully not to the point of redundancy. Also, given the fact that most people reading the book are completely uninformed about owls, the tidbits given are really fascinating. For me at least, I loved when she would discuss various owl and animal info, but for others not as interested in animal behavior and more interested in Wesley's tale, those small parts may bore you a bit.

Any animal lover will love this book and it continues to prove what most of us already know: every animal is a unique individual with their own seperate personalities and feelings. Most of them have been on this planet longer than us and we need to take better care of sharing it with them. Animals are not here for us to own and dominate, they're here as friends and neighbors and we need to start treating them as such.