NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- A Pennsylvania native has written a children’s book about the stowaway owl found in this year’s Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.
Author T. Troy Kolo. and illustrator Meredith Miner released a children’s book about the feathered creature’s unexpected journey, called "Rockefeller the Christmas Owl," earlier this month, the New York Post reported.
A worker who helped transport the 75-foot-tall Norway spruce from Oneonta, New York into midtown Manhattan discovered the owl — who was subsequently dubbed “Rocky” — tucked inside the tree last month.
“When I had heard the news, I immediately thought, ‘Boy, gee, there is a story there that practically writes itself,” Kolo., 52, told the Post. “When the idea struck immediately after hearing about [the owl], I sat down and started to do a couple of verses and in a few days I had something finished.”
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“I’m particularly fond of the middle part of the book where they are actually in Rockefeller Plaza,” he added. “[The owl] first gets his glimpse of New York City and is in awe of all the lights and so forth.”
The story, he noted, is “about getting back to your parents and the importance of family and how deep that runs within most of us.”
The real “Rocky” was released into the wild by a wildlife sanctuary in Ulster County last month.