Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children was first published in 2011 and is Ransom Rigg’s debut novel. It’s an eerie mystery about a teenage boy who sets out to discover the truth in the strange stories that his grandfather told him as a child. The novel forms the first part of a trilogy and is followed by Hollow City (2014) and Library of Souls (2015). There is also a film adaptation of the first book due for release at the end of this year.
At the age of sixteen, Jacob Portman had long come to believe that his grandfather was just senile. He was old enough now to see that the tales of a childhood spent in an orphanage full of “peculiar” children were just symbolic of his evacuation from war-torn Poland, and the monsters that chased him were just Nazi soldiers. However, Jacob suddenly realises how wrong he is when tragedy strikes and he witnesses his grandfather’s death at the hands of a hideous ghoul.
Unable to believe his eyes, Jacob suffers from nightmares and anxiety attacks. On his psychiatrist’s urging, he begins to investigate his grandfather’s past and discovers that he really did once live in an orphanage on the remote Welsh island of Cairnholm. Jacob decides to visit the island in the hope that doing so will help him confront his fears.
However, Cairnholm holds many mysteries. As Jacob explores the island and the ruins of the orphanage, he starts to unearth a secret that’s been hidden since 1940. It rapidly becomes clear that everything his grandfather told him was true. That the children were kept hidden in such a remote place for a very good reason and, impossibly, that they’re still alive.
Arkham Reviews 