An Odd, Yet Readable, Book

I recently finished reading a rather unusual and slightly odd book.  The title is Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.  It's a novel by Ransom Riggs.

It starts out with a family tragedy which severely affects 16-year-old Jacob.  He ends up journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales.  There he discovers the ruins of the aforementioned. home.  He begins to learn more about the home and 'peculiar' children. 

One interesting part of the book concerns the photos used as illustrations.  According to the chart at the end of the book, the photos were not created for the book.  Instead they are odd and weird and unusual photos that have been found at flea markets and antiques malls and yard sales.

I'm not sure if the author found out about the photos and created the story to fit the photos or if he started creating the story and found about the photos and used them as additional themes.  In any case, it's a very effective device.

Papillon

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!

This photo is courtesy of http://www.dailysquee.com/.

Since my mom lives over 500 miles away, I didn't get to spend the day with her.  I called, though, and we had a nice chat.

Earlier in the day, I decided to go to the Rio Grande Nature Center.  They were holding their annual Herb Fest.  It's a pleasant way to spend an hour or so.  The weather was warm, but not too hot with a bit of a breeze.

Lots of animals enjoying the weather.  I got to see a mother Canada goose and her gosling.  I first noticed the mom.  She was on the bank and was bouncing her neck up and down, obviously checking out all of us humans who were checking her out.  It was a few minutes later that I noticed the gosling.  You have to look closely to see the goose - she's in the center of the bottom of the photo in the middle of a bunch of branches.

There were also turtles sunning themselves on a large branch plus some hummingbirds bickering over a feeder.  Here are the turtles:

It was fun listening to a four-person band playing some folk music.  They were good.

A local wildlife refuge had some raptors available to look at - injured birds who have healed but can no longer live in the wild.  The birds were gorgeous - a peregrine falcon, barn owl, burrowing owl and a crow.

All in all, a nice time was had.  I took some photos but all I had was my 35mm camera so will have to wait until I get the film processed before I can post anything.

Papillon