Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children  by Ransom Riggs

Read:  2012

Jacob Portman sees his grandfather murdered by a creature only he can see.  As a small boy, Jacob's grandfather would show him photographs and tell him stories, but then he got too old to believe those tales, his grandfather stopped telling them.  After his death, when he goes through his grandfather's things he discovers the photographs of children doing amazing things and letters that lead him to Wales to get his grandfather's history.  There he meets the peculiar children, the very ones from his grandfather's photographs and he meets Miss Peregrine.  

Jacob was told that his grandfather left Miss Peregrine's Home to go to war and later settled in America.  When Jacob arrives in Wales, he finds that the home was severely damaged by a fire  from a bomb during the war, and that no one really goes to that side of the island.  There, he meets Emma, who was a friend of his grandfather's and he learns the strange story about the home and its inhabitants, perennially children and living in a loop, one complete day before the bomb fell that would have killed them all.  

There are strange forces out to destroy all the people involved in the time loop, and those, like Jacob's grandfather who left.  Jacob must help find ways to save the home and its occupants.  

Riggs used old photographs he collected.  The photographs formed a basis for the characters and what their powers would be.  They are scattered throughout the text and really add to the experience when reading the book.  The story is very well written, the characters are fascinating.  I love that the women who run the time loops all have the names of birds and take their charges and their responsibilities to them very seriously.  

I understand there is a sequel to the book and a film in the works.  I think the book stood well on its own, but that doesn't mean that I won't be reading the next book.  Here is the book trailer for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: