Isabella.

Look at her white heart-shaped face: in real barn owls, that face gathers sound like an antenna and carries it to the ears. That's why Isabella hears tiny things that slip past everyone else. In her story she works at night, when the world is quiet and every little sound stands out: a drip, a cable, a bird far off. She pays enormous attention to every sound, and that's how she catches everything. For a kid who hears it all, who asks about every strange noise in the house, this owl fits like a glove.

Isabella has a habit that's easy to understand: she keeps things in case they're useful someday. Sounds she records and doesn't delete, small odds and ends, keepsakes. She finds them hard to let go of, "just in case." And she always wears a pendant shaped like a ginkgo leaf, which you can see gleaming on her chest on the t-shirt: her mother gave it to her and she never takes it off. It's a portrait for curious, collector kids, the kind with a box of treasures only they understand. There's more about Isabella in her biography.