The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away

by Ronald L. Smith

Twelve-year-old Simon is obsessed with aliens. The ones who take people and do experiments. When he's too worried about them to sleep, he listens to the owls hoot outside. Owls that have the same eyes as aliens—dark and foreboding.

Then something strange happens on a camping trip, and Simon begins to suspect he’s been abducted. But is it real, or just the overactive imagination of a kid who loves fantasy and role-playing games and is the target of bullies and his father’s scorn?

Even readers who don’t believe in UFOs will relate to the universal kid feeling of not being taken seriously by adults that deepens this deliciously scary tale.

Genres: Middle Grade, Science Fiction, Horror, Aliens, Childrens, Mystery, Fantasy

272 pages, Hardcover

First published February 19, 2019

About the author

I grew up on Air Force bases and have lived in Japan, Maine, Alabama, Michigan, South Carolina, Delaware, Washington, DC, Illinois and a bunch of other places I don’t remember. After reading Ray Bradbury’s R is for Rocket and Eleanor Cameron’s Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet I fell in love with books.

I haven’t stopped reading since.

HOODOO is my debut middle-grade novel. My second novel, THE MESMERIST, is available February, 2017.

My work is represented by Adriann Ranta of Foundry Literary + Media.

My publisher is Clarion, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.