Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

If you are a fan of fantasy novels, I have just the book for you! Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is the debut novel of American author, Ransom Riggs. There are currently four books in this series, being Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Hollow City, Library Of Souls and A Map Of Days. This series is particularly interesting as the stories are told through a combination of narratives and photographs from the personal archives of the collectors listed by the author.

The story starts off by talking about the protagonist Jacob Portman’s grandfather, Abraham. As a child, Jacob listened to Abraham’s stories about living with peculiar children in a special children’s home run by Miss Peregrine. But as Jacob grows older, he starts to doubt his grandfather’s stories until one day, he visits his injured and dying grandfather and sees the strange, horrifying creature his grandfather had always told him about. The catch is, only Jacob and Abraham could see the creature! Obviously, no one believes Jacob’s account of the invisible monster, and he was believed to be going crazy. His parents take him to Dr. Golan, a psychiatrist, who suggested that Jacob go to Wales, the location of his grandfather’s children’s home. However, upon his arrival, Jacob finds the home deserted, and tries to seek information from the local people there.

Despite being told that the home had been destroyed by a bomb in 1940, Jacob refused to give up. He returns to the home once again and this time, encounters a girl who could produce fire with her hands. Upon seeing Jacob, the girl ran away, with Jacob in hot pursuit. When he crossed the bogs, however, he realised that his surroundings had changed. It is later explained that he had entered a loop, where Miss Peregrine and her children lived in.

In my opinion, this book is a great pick for people who love to read about fantasy! There are also a lot of plot twists along the way, which adds on to the suspense of readers. Even though I am not a huge fan of fantasy, I found this book series very interesting and immediately took a liking to it.

-Desiree Lim

3 Hope