Ok, the pronunciation was right on my first guess, but it felt too easy for French pronunciation and I overthought it! Before my chats with you, the extent of my French experience has been learning to pronounce a few things on my one trip to New Orleans. I should have gotten it right from the owl/cookoo song.

The breakdown of how chouette is pronounced is helpful now that it’s a word I’m now at least a bit familiar with. Knowing where the ou stops and the ette starts makes much more sense now.

The etymology about the jackdaw came from Wiktionary

Inherited from Old French çuete, diminutive of choë, cauwe, from Vulgar Latin *cawa or from Old Dutch *kāwa (“jackdaw”) (compare Dutch kauw, English chough), from Proto-West Germanic *kahu, from Proto-Indo-European *gewH- (“to call, cry”).

I know Spanish also has different words for owls with and without plumicorns, it seems English skipped that for some reason.

The book title does look to be a pun. The other creatures seem to be afraid of him because he’s a predator, sort of like a watered down Zootopia.

Owly just wants to lend a helping hand to his fellow woodland creatures, but they are all too afraid of him because he is an owl! Being mean and scary just isn’t in his nature, but an owl is an owl, as far as everybody else is concerned.

Thank you so much for all the explanations! It’s a lot of fun getting surprise lessons here.