Intrigue.

Peanut has become quite a little negotiator lately. Her chief techniques are the urgent tone of voice and the word NOW.

Peanut: Want some O's.
Me: Sure. Why don't you finish the O's in your bowl, then you can have some more.
Peanut: Want some more O's NOW.
Me: Yeah, sure, OK. (getting up)

The characters in The Birds Fall Down are dealing with issues much more important (you know, the socialist revolution in Russia). But their style of getting things done is sort of just as basic. Lots of terrorism, lots of spying, basically lots of intrigue. Rather than trying to convince the world what they want, they try to beat the world over the head with it through terrorism.

The Birds Fall Down is the story of an 18 year old girl who gets caught up in a situation where her exiled Russian grandfather has unknowingly been employing a double agent. Worse yet, that double agent might have the hots for her. The book started off really slowly but then toward the middle it became very exciting. I especially was interested in what it said on the book jacket that the book is actually based on something that happened in real life (catching this one particular double spy) that helped pave the way for Lenin's rise to power. Pretty cool.