The two Fiona’s of Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children, the wilder, organic version of Riggs’ book and the cute Hollywood version of the movie.

[This is a departure from my ‘normal’ posting.  It is an attempt to get to the ‘heart’ of gardening, closer to the spark within us that drives us, the connection we share with the world we live in that has variously drawn us in to the ‘way’ that we have made for ourselves.]

We’re all familiar with the myth of the ‘green thumb’, those individuals magically endowed with the ability to mysteriously grow anything, but as gardeners we see this as the ‘lie’ that it is.  I’ve told people that those of us with a ‘green thumb’ are simply people with the patience and interest to pay closer attention to the natural world and what is happening in it, that we are better observers.  In Ransom Riggs’ fictional world of Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children, Peculiars possess powers beyond those of the rest of us, the non-peculiars, normal people.  Some of these might strike us simply as bizarre abnormalities, e.g., an extra mouth on the back of one’s head, the power to command bees some of which live within your stomach??? while others put Peculiars more firmly in the realm of comic book super heroes, such as great strength, invisibility, the ability to create and control fire at will, or its opposite cold and ice…without the tights.  In their world of such possibilities these ‘peculiarities’ elicit fear and, quite often, violence from the normals and worse from those who would take it all for themselves, hence the protective action of the Ymbryne’s.  This is a fantasy story, which places it in a more magical world than stories of science fiction that tend to project our knowledge and capabilities into some future, utopian or dystopian world.  In fantasy worlds the author creates a world and mythology where this is simply true rather than explaining such abilities in scientific terms, and knowing something of magic we accept it at face value.  Such are the abilities of the character Fiona, who is gifted with the ability to powerfully direct the growth of plants, not unlike the character Poison Ivy from the DC world of Batman, though in her case her motivation is to help or protect her friends and others rather than Poison Ivy’s much more self-serving ends. Continue reading →