Review by Charlotte Selby of "Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children" by Ransom Riggs

I first heard about Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children when I discovered that Tim Burton would be directing the film adaptation. Despite not being a big fan of things on the eerily creepy side, I have a lot of admiration for Tim Burton’s works. So I picked up a copy of the book. 

Ransom Riggs has a fascination for things of the peculiar and started visiting abandoned places and collecting eerie photographs which the intention of creating a books of the things he had collected. However, his editor said this wouldn’t sell, so suggested that Ransom try to create a story from the photographs, and so this novel was born. 

This is the first book in the trilogy and follows Jacob who idolizes his Grandpa due to the stories he tells from his time in Miss Peregrine’s orphanage, to the odd photographs he owns. In Jacob’s fifteenth year, his Grandpa takes a bad turn, believing that invisible monsters are coming to get him, and shortly dies leaving behind his dying word: Rosebud. Suffering a monumental loss lands Jacob with a psychiatrist who tells Jacob that to best way to deal with his depression is to go the his island his Grandpa grew up on, and find the explanation behind his cryptic last words. 

On Cairholm Island in Wales, Jacob finds Miss Peregrine’s home – which is in ruins – and starts to investigate. Here he discovers a girl who can create fire with her hands and a boy who can turn invisible. Both he has seen before in his Grandpa’s photographs. They chase him and Jacob suddenly finds himself trapped in September 3rd 1940, the day Miss Peregrine’s home was destroyed by a bomb dropped during World War II. And he’s stuck in a time loop where the day restarts just as the bomb hits the home. 

I simply adored the use of prose and photographs and how they worked together to move the story forward. If you’re looking for a creepy read, this is it!

About the reviewer
Charlotte Selby is a 22 year old Creative Writing and English DMU graduate who can be found in a dark corner working on her novel.