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My mom owns a photo album that’s filled with pictures taken back before color film. Whenever I look at them, I think how scary and a little bit creepy my long-deceased relatives looked—mainly because no one smiled! I get the same uncanny feeling from the pictures in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.
Off the coast of Wales lies a tiny island where a mysterious, abandoned orphanage draws sixteen-year-old Jacob Portman to discover a family secret. After his grandpa’s violent death at the hands of a creature everyone believes that he—including Jacob himself—imagined, Jacob feels the need to understand his grandfather’s mysterious past and the photos of strange children that he kept in a box. His search brings him to Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, where the children died in a bomb blast from enemy planes during World War II.
Though the orphanage has been abandoned for decades—and all that remains are decaying walls and floors—Jacob learns that the children weren’t just peculiar. They may have been downright scary and possibly dangerous, and they may still be on the island. He also discovers that something else—something more treacherous—has followed him to a place that his grandfather swore was safe.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a unique and fascinating paranormal mystery. The inclusion of bizarre pictures that the author has collected over the years adds an eerie quality to the novel and gives a deeper visual effect to the story.
Jacob Portman is a mature young man for his age, and though he wanders around a potentially dangerous island, you’ll still understand his need to do so, and you’ll want him to—because you’ll want to discover what the children’s home is and was. Jacob’s love for his grandpa—and his desire to help others—will also endear his character to you.
I had despaired of finding anything truly distinctive to read until I picked up Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. This is definitely not a cookie cutter paranormal mystery. It’s an unforgettable book, most worthy of your precious reading time, and the strange photos scattered throughout make it even better.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is going up on my keeper shelf, where I can take it down and reread it ever so often—or just look at the pictures. Until then, I’m off to Wal-Mart to see if I can find the sequel, Hollow City.
