Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Carrie and I (Amy by marriage and Chanin by association) have a grandfather that is fond of telling tales.  They're all 100% true.  They're all true so long as your definition of truth is having good intentions and using broad strokes with the details.  And as a farmer/musician whose own father lived into his 100s, our grandfather usually has some colorful stories before the broad strokes come in.  He loves to entertain and he doesn't really need you to believe it, so long as you listen.  He'll listen to you too, and even if you're only 10 years old, he'll listen earnestly.  That's not a bad way to grow up, even when you start to realize that some of his tales are taller than others.  

That's what happened to our protagonist Jacob.  His grandfather was a large part of his childhood; telling him tales of fighting monsters, showing him pictures of his childhood friends with peculiar powers, and retelling tales from his safe place, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.  As Jacob grows older and begins to question the validity of all that, Abe (the grandfather) allows Jacob to come to his own conclusions.  When we meet Jacob he's sixteen years old and having a really boring summer.  But when he gets a frantic call from his grandfather and then later discovers his grandfather's body in the woods, boring is no longer an apt description of his summer.

While Jacob tries to process what he saw that night, he has to come to terms with who he thought his grandfather was.  Jacob starts counseling for his recurring nightmares and increasingly anti-social behaviors, and ultimately that starts him on the journey of discovering the truth about his grandfather and the peculiar children he heard so much about in his childhood.  Jacob and his father travel to a remote British island as part of the healing process for Jacob.  While there, Jacob discovers that his grandfather was telling the truth when he finds a time loop and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children within that time loop.  In the loop, it is always September 3, 1940 and the children and their headmistress remain the same physically.  So the same children Jacob's grandfather described and displayed pictures of, are there in the same physical context.  Jacob is taught all this by the children who reside in the loop and the esteemed Miss Peregrine herself, after he discovers the modern day ruins of the home then follows some of the children into the loop.

Jacob is, after some initial suspicions, welcomed into the fold and is also made aware that not just the good stories his grandfather told were true.  Unfortunately the bad stories, the ones involving monsters that must be fought and killed, are true as well.  The Home is a safe place but only because of vigilance and its secret location.  And all that is about to end.  Ultimately Jacob must decide whether to return to his functionally dysfunctional family, or stay with this unique family of orphans that his grandfather's legacy led him to.  I won't give away all the details, but there is danger and not everything is wrapped up prettily at the end of the book. It's left wide open for a series of books to follow, in my opinion.  I'd rate it as PG-13 for some scary content.  There is a hint of romance, but not much at all, and the language isn't an issue either.  It's a good story and it's well-written.  Oh! And the pictures are pretty awesome as well.  I would recommend this book for anyone who likes a little mystery, a little adventure, and a little bit of a tall tale.

 

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