Young adult fiction has long been a genre that does a fantastic job of exploring identity, belonging, and the extraordinary. It might be through dystopian landscapes, magical realism or eerie mysteries, but whatever the theme, YA novels captivate readers by blending fantasy with real-world struggles. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs is a perfect example that examines these themes, especially of being different … or peculiar! It is an engaging and exciting story that fuses historical fiction, supernatural elements and found photography together to create a hauntingly immersive reading experience. A hauntingly beautiful tale of mystery and magic.
Ransom Riggs is a collector of found photography and vernacular photographs. This passion led him to originally wanting to publish a book of vintage photos. His publisher liked the idea but wanted him to go that little bit further and persuaded him to write a narrative to accompany the photos and the bestselling Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children was born, the first book in a very successful series.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children was the debut novel by Ransom Riggs, and it was very well received by readers – it stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for over two years! It is a story of courage, not fitting into society as we know it, finding your way in the world and some very peculiar children and monsters … and lots of very real and strange photographs.
Let’s head off to Florida in the USA where we find sixteen-year-old Jacob Portman. Ever since he was a young boy he was fascinated listening to his grandfather’s fantastical tales about an orphanage that was filled with children possessing peculiar abilities. But this was no ordinary orphanage, it was home to children who had some very strange and wonderful gifts. These tales were fantastic stories, including tales of his grandfather escaping from monsters that were hunting him and other children in Poland during World War II just because they were different from others. As Jacob gets older, he comes to believe that these stories were actually stories of very real monsters that were found in crisp army uniforms.
When tragedy strikes and Jacob’s grandfather is attacked and murdered in very mysterious circumstances, grief-stricken Jacob embarks on a journey to a remote island off the coast of Wales, searching for answers. He starts with needing to find the “wise old bird” that guards the orphanage. This is the beginning of a story that will take him on an adventure that will change the course of his life forever.
When he arrives in Wales, he finds Miss Peregrine’s orphanage, a crumbling ruin that holds secrets beyond his imagination. With the discovery of some old photographs, he finds that children his grandfather spoke of are real, and they live in a time loop, forever reliving the same day in 1940. Each child has a unique ability, from invisibility to fire manipulation, and Jacob soon discovers that he may be more connected to them than he ever realised.
Using these old photographs, combined with his grandfather’s stories he sets out trying to find the wise old bird. As this orphanage existed in the 1940s could she, or any of the children that lived there, still be alive?
Overall, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a fantastic fantasy novel. While it is perfect for YA fantasy readers, adults will love it too. Built around a strange collection of real found photographs, Ransom Riggs has created a very interesting and exciting adventure novel about being different, fitting in, courage, friendship and finding yourself. His storytelling is rich and atmospheric, blending some eerie sepia-toned photographs with a narrative that feels both timeless and unsettling. It’s more than just a supernatural adventure – it’s a story about finding where you belong.
Told as a narrative from the point of view of the protagonist Jacob, who is coming to terms with his grandfather’s death, it is both beautiful and unsettling, ensuring that readers will be hooked from the very first page to the last.
The story is very well written and constructed despite its complex themes of time travel, time loops, parallel universes and strange monsters, Ransom Riggs provides plenty of detail so that teenage readers can grasp the context of the story with relative ease. It is easy to read, elegantly told and will appeal to a broad section of readers, young and old. Whilst the story is essentially about children and being different, it also features themes of death and loss, grief, love, loneliness, belonging, fear and self-esteem. With its darkly whimsical tone, unforgettable characters, and gripping mystery, it is a must-read for fans of fantasy, historical fiction, and eerie adventures.
I loved reading the novel, I thought that is was an excellent powerful and thrilling adventure story that packed an exciting punch. It is an eerie and creepy fantasy adventure, set against a backdrop of World War II, featuring some rather bizarre and strange characters that explode with life from the pages. Some of the themes may be a bit on the darker side; threats of violence, drinking to mask problems, some bad language, sexual innuendos (blowing truckers for food stamps for example), mentions of adultery and even incest, you might want to consider how emotionally mature your child is before giving them this book to read.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a fascinating book with an engaging and thought-provoking storyline. And the peculiar vintage sepia photographs lends it an air of weird authenticity.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £14.99 (Hardback) / £8.99 (Paperback) / £1.99 (Kindle)
For more information, visit ransomriggs.com. Available to buy from Amazon here.
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