Kidnapped

As I left my house for book club the sun was just going down.  I wished it were lighter and warmer. As I headed south on Highway 47, what do I see?  On the telephone wire on the curve of the road, above the pedestrian underpass, perched an owl.  Given the size and the pointy ears, it had to be a great horned owl.  I have never seen a great horned owl or heard a great horned owl in my neighborhood before so this was a very big thrill and a good omen for my evening.  I was almost late for book club. We had a good discussion about Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped.  I had  not read it before.  I have read Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and I have read Treasure Island.  This book was good in that it was full of action and adventure but the language was difficult.  The Scottish brogue was thick.  It helped that there were explanatory footnotes in the book for some of the words.  The politics of Scotland in the mid 1800's is complicated.  They had a clan system going and some clans sided with the King of England and others didn't.  I guess the author wrote this book for children but I don't think only children would enjoy it.  His descriptions of the hills and the shore and the tides and the heather were amazing.  I could picture myself right there on the scene.  Halfway through reading this I obtained the BBC two hour television of the story. I watched that and then went back and read the second half of Kidnapped.  I wouldn't always recommend that sequence of reading and watching the movie but in this case it was a good choice for me.