Anyone who has ever shuffled through boxes of vintage photographs at a flea market understands the appeal of imagining stories for stranger's lives. Ransom Riggs has built an entire novel on a collection of unusual Victorian photographs of "peculiar" children: a levitating little girl, a boy with bees in his chest. He transforms these artifacts of fakery into a rollicking modern adventure story about a teenage boy who seeks to discover the truth about a mysterious island in Wales where his late grandfather was sheltered during World War II. With its chocolate-and-cognac endpapers and full page black-and-white photographs, this clever novel is also an exquisite reminder of the pleasures of the book as a beautifully designed object.
