Another cloudy and dreary day. Oh well, I will be so busy in the library today after being gone for over a week that I won't notice. Hopefully the rain will stop so I don't have to use my trash cans under the leaks. Was watching the pelicans having their breakfast as they dove into the ocean below us. That was the one thing I missed about living above Brewer's Bay - the pelicans. There were flocks of them in the shallow waters near the runway. Guess they didn't mind being deafened by the landing and departing planes.

Forgot to take another book out of my luggage at the airport on the way home from Philly so I had to buy a book. Found S.E. Hinton's Hawkes Harbor. I really did enjoy it. A mix of a coming of age and a vampire story. It was published for the adult market, but I do think older teens would enjoy it as for most of the story the main character, Jaime, is an irresponsible 20 something. Guys would like the smuggling and gun running adventures as Jaime follows the unscrupulous Kell around the world, from one scam to another. Until he finds himself in Hawkes Harbor and listens to the tales of ghosts and treasure in the caves. Thinking there must be treasure in a chained closed coffin, Jaime unleashes a vampire who claims him as his unwilling servant. Jaime is at the brink of insanity due to his transformation and Grenville's cruelty and is hospitalized when he is shot while saving a friend from the vampire. He begins to heal at mental hospital and Grenville is also "healing", becoming human again with the help of a doctor. A bit of a convoluted story, but certainly one that keeps you reading. I finished it before the plane landed in St. Thomas and thoroughly enjoyed it. Certainly a departure from her earlier YA novels, but a fun read nevertheless.

For those who have enjoyed Yolen and Teague's other dinosaur books, add How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food? to your collection, library or home. Little ones will love both the rhyming text about how not to, and how to, behave while eating as well as the humorous illustrations of multi-ethnic parents dealing with their dinosaur children at meal time. The facial expressions of the parents, the dinosaurs, and the family pets are a delight. What fun! For the young dinosaur aficionado, the end pages have the names of each of the dinosaurs depicted in the story. There is also a mini version of the book included.

Off to Montessori for the day.