Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

I picked up Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs after hearing about it from a number of fellow librarians and friends.  When I started reading it, I had no idea what it was about, but really enjoyed the book.  There are fanatastical characters, a suspenseful plot, and historical references that I truly enjoyed.

The story revolves around 16-year-old Jacob and his quest to learn more about his grandfather’s past in an abandoned orphanage on a mysterious island half way around the world.  As Jacob learns more about his grandfather’s past, he begins to understand that the children in the orphanage were more than just a little odd.

This is a well-written suspense story specifically for young adults (high school age) and adults.  It was really interesting to find that all the photographs throughout the book are actual vintage photographs that people have collected over the years.

I might need to check out Ransom Riggs’ new book Talking Pictures: Images and Messages Rescued from the Past which will be released in October of this year.  As he explains it, “Miss Peregrine was a story I made up about photographs I found, then Talking Pictures is photos that already have stories attached to them, written by anonymous hands years ago.”  You can learn more about Ransom Riggs and the book by visiting his website.  You can also learn more about Ransom Riggs’ hobby of collecting old photographs by watching his YouTube video.

Title: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Author: Ransom Riggs
Publisher: Quirk Books
Page Number: 352 pgs.