Book Review of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Riggs, Ransom. 2011. MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN. Philadelphia, PA: Quirk Books. ISBN 9781594744761.


PLOT SUMMARY

Jacob Portman grows up inspired by his grandfather’s tales of adventure, until Jacob reaches the age of questioning these stories. He decides that they are just “fairy tales” and begins to live a normal young boy’s life. However, that all changes on the day he finds his grandfather murdered. What follows is Jacob’s pursuit of the mystery that was his grandfather’s life, and how it connects to Jacob himself.   

 

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

This novel is a wonderful example of fantasy fiction. The protagonist, Jacob Portman, lives in a normal world where his grandfather is his hero and closest friend. Eventually, however, as he gets older, he starts believing that his grandfather’s tales are just made-up lies. His grandfather is killed in a strange way that causes Jacob to have to go through a long period of psychotherapy. Jacob has difficulty reconciling everything he knows about his grandfather until the day he goes to an island with his father. There he discovers that his grandfather had actually been telling him the truth all along. On the island, through the means of a time loop, Jacob meets his grandfather’s childhood friends and the inimitable Miss Peregrine. The best part of this novel is how Jacob’s relationship with his grandfather and father change, grow, and mature throughout the narrative. Jacob must come to an understanding of how he feels about both of them, and his feelings for them constantly change based on what he learns on the island. The author provides a fantastic world that is consistent within itself, and one which has definitive evil which must be countered by the good represented by Jacob and his friends (and Miss Peregrine.) The evil that they battle seeks to destroy them completely and utterly. The novel begins with Jacob’s grandfather being killed by the evil ones; and the novel ends with Jacob and his friends setting out to find a way to win out against their enemies. This book concludes on a note that invites the reader to find the next book in the series and start reading it.         

        

REVIEW EXCERPTS

LIBRARY JOURNAL review: “An original work that defies categorization.”

BOOKLIST review: “Riggs’ debut uses the framework of a horror novel to tell a more far-reaching tale with symbolic overtones of the Holocaust.”

KIRKUS review: “Riggs spins a gothic tale of strangely gifted children and the monsters that pursue them from a set of eerie, old trick photographs.”

 
CONNECTIONS

* Topics related to this include World War II, the Holocaust, growing up, coming of age, and family relationships.  

* If you like MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN, you may also enjoy the next books in this series:

Riggs, Ransom. 2014. HOLLOW CITY. ISBN 9781594746123.

Riggs, Ransom. 2015. LIBRARY OF SOULS. ISBN 9781594747588.    

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