Young Derry Willard was certainly excited when he saw the Christmas tree. Excited enough, I mean, to shift his eyes for at least three minutes from my sister Rosalee’s face. Lovely as my sister Rosalee was, it had never yet occurred to any of us, I think, until just that moment that she was old enough to have perfectly strange young men stare at her so hard. It made my father rather nervous. He cut his hand on the carving-knife. Nothing ever made my mother nervous...FROM THE BOOKS.

Until Flynn’s neighbor in North Carolina offered him one, he had never considered whether he wanted a peacock. His family became the owners of not one but three charming yet fickle birds: Carl, Ethel, and Mr. Pickle. Here he chronicles their first year as peacock owners, from struggling to build a pen to assisting the local bird doctor in surgery to triumphantly watching a peahen lay her first egg. He also examines the history of peacocks, from their appearance in the Garden of Eden. And Flynn travels across the globe to learn more about the birds firsthand. His book offers surprising lessons about love, grief, fatherhood, and family. -- adapted from jacket.