“I spent the last afternoon of Before constructing a 1/10,000-scale replica of the Empire State Building from boxes of adult diapers.”

From Ransom Riggs’ Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

Jacob Portman is stuck in a boring life.  He’s 16, lives in Florida, can’t connect with his parents, and has a grandfather (Abe) with failing mental health.  He’s stuck until Abe is attacked and killed by an animal (police said wild dogs, but the creature Jake saw was definitely not a dog).  Jacob is haunted by his grandfather’s dying words and the fairy tales that Abe clung so tightly to.  Jake decides to try to find closure by visiting the children’s home where his grandfather lived as a child (and maybe make sense of the stories that center around Miss Peregrine’s Home).  Jacob is able to convince his parents to let him travel to the small Welsh island.  On arrival, Jacob quickly learns that the home was destroyed decades earlier and all the children were killed.  A search of the ruins to find some answers leads Jacob to meet some children… from Abe’s childhood (practically straight out of Abe’s old photographs!).  They lead Jake through a time loop and he is suddenly back in September 1930; Miss Peregrine and all Abe’s childhood friends are alive (they haven’t aged a day!) and they are in grave danger.  Jacob is quick to join their fight for survival, because as it turns out, he is the only one who can save them.

Ransom Riggs develops a story that is enchanting from start to finish; he manages to write a story that is a satisfying blend of romance, horror, mystery, action, and fantasy.  The story develops at an good pace and is unique, to say the least.  The real-life photographs that lead Rigg’s writing really add a layer to the book that really make the story.   Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a book that will capture the imagination and is definitely worth the read.