Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Book One
Written by Ransom Riggs
Fantasy, Paranormal, Mystery
Film Edition Published August 15th 2016
384 Pages
Thank you to Penguin Random House Australia
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★★★★★

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen year old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow, impossible though it seems, they may still be alive.

Growing up, sixteen year old Jacob was always fascinated by his grandfathers fantastical stories. A man who escaped Poland before the approaching second world war, his parents sending him alone on a train to Britain only to have perished, leaving his grandfather orphaned and taken in by Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children in Wales. This is no ordinary children's home as Jacob is about to discover.

Along with his father on a bird watching expedition, Jacob now stands among the ruins of the once loved children's home. In the hope of rekindling his wondrous childhood, Jacob believes his fate is wrapped up in the derelict home where his grandfather was once young and free spirited. Armed with a collection of vintage photographs and his grandfathers stories, Jacob will discover a world parallel to his own. A world of wonder, enchantment and a world on the verge of destruction.

My Thoughts

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children was fantastical, a wonderfully rich and picturesque world that enchants and delights. Sixteen year old Jacob stands among the ruins of the once stately Wales manor, formerly an orphanage for children during the second world war including Jacob's grandfather. As a young boy, Jacob was raised on the tales of mythical children who were extraordinary. Invisibility, levitation, creating, shaping and enchanting the children's home where taught by Miss Peregrine herself.

As the modern realm advances, the children are protected by a time loop and live each day with endless possibilities knowing that the sun will rise again. While Jacob's grandfather enlisted in the war effort, returned, married and begun a family of his own, the children of Miss Peregrine's haven't aged. Perpetual children who are loved, cared for and given refuge against a cruel world.

So incredibly whimsical, the children were lovingly created and their world vividly painted. I was captivated. Throughout the first installment, the reader is treated to a collection of images of the children under Miss Peregrine's care. It was incredibly atmospheric and immersive.

  

Told through Jacob's point of view, Jacob is teen lashing out after tragedy befalls the Portman family. He's antisocial and insists on retracing his grandfathers childhood tales with his unemployed father in tow. His father has never understood the connection his own father shared with Jacob, but under the guise of a bird watching expedition and advice from Jacob's therapist, the duo adventure to the small Welsh island.

What makes Jacob extraordinary himself is the children of the orphanage. Dapper Horace who has premonitions of the future, Hugh who is seemingly made of bees, Enoch who can animate the dead, the invisible Millard and Emma Bloom who is the homes resident pyrokinetic, able to create and control fire. Emma and Jacob are attracted to one another especially given her connection to his grandfather, but their attraction is a gentle companionship rather than a passionate teen romance.

It was nothing short of breathtaking. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children's whimsically eerie storyline of the curious and wonderful. Lyrically beautiful and immersive, I absolutely adored it.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
will be released in Australian cinemas on September 29th 2016.