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Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Ransom Riggs (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

37,459 ratings

Book 1 of 6: Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children

Editors' pick Best Young Adult

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The #1 New York Times Best Seller is now a major motion picture from visionary director Tim Burton, starring Eva Green, Asa Butterfield, Ella Purnell, Samuel L. Jackson, and Judi Dench.

Bonus features
• Q&A with author Ransom Riggs
• Eight pages of color stills from the film
• Sneak preview of Hollow City, the next novel in the series

A mysterious island.

An abandoned orphanage.

A strange collection of very curious photographs.

It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive. A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows.

“A tense, moving, and wondrously strange first novel. The photographs and text work together brilliantly to create an unforgettable story.”—John Green, New York Times best-selling author of The Fault in Our Stars

“With its X-Men: First Class-meets-time-travel story line, David Lynchian imagery, and rich, eerie detail, it’s no wonder Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children has been snapped up by Twentieth Century Fox. B+”—Entertainment Weekly

“‘Peculiar’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. Riggs’ chilling, wondrous novel is already headed to the movies.”—People

“You’ll love it if you want a good thriller for the summer. It’s a mystery, and you’ll race to solve it before Jacob figures it out for himself.”—Seventeen

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Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children
Ransom Riggs

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Library of Souls: The Third Novel of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children
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The Conference of the Birds (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children Book 5)
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The Desolations of Devil's Acre (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children Book 6)
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Popular Highlights in this book

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They were orphans of war, washed up on that little island in a tide of blood.
Highlighted by 3,580 Kindle readers
He made a grab for me, but slow and drunk is no match for fast and scared shitless.
Highlighted by 3,440 Kindle readers
Males lack the seriousness of temperament required of persons with such grave responsibilities.
Highlighted by 3,300 Kindle readers

From the Publisher

	Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children	Hollow City	Library of Souls	A Map of Days	The Conference of the Birds	The Desolations of Devil's Acre

Customer Reviews	37,459	20,702	18,489	7,516	6,879	5,374
Price	$6.51	$10.48	$10.44	$19.79	$12.05	$12.05
	Book 1 of the Miss Peregrine series. A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. An unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience.	Book 2 of the Miss Peregrine series. Ten peculiar children flee an army of deadly monsters. And only one person can help them—but she’s trapped in the body of a bird.	Book 3 of the Miss Peregrine series. A boy with extraordinary powers. An army of deadly monsters. An epic battle for the future of peculiardom.	Book 4 of the Miss Peregrine series. New wonders, and dangers, await in this darkly brilliant next chapter for Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, illustrated with haunting vintage photographs- in full colour.	Book 5 of the Miss Peregrine series. With enemies behind him and the unknown ahead, Jacob Portman’s story continues as he takes a brave leap forward.	The fate of all peculiardom hangs in the balance as Jacob and his friends face deadly enemies and race through history's most dangerous loops in this epic conclusion to the #1 bestselling Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series.

	Tales of the Peculiar	Miss Peregrine's Museum of Wonders

Customer Reviews	2,876	396
Price	$12.25	$12.94
	A companion to the #1 bestselling Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children series!	A deluxe companion guide to the #1 bestselling Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series. Everything you need to know about the peculiar world, written by Miss Peregrine herself.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A tense, moving, and wondrously strange first novel. The photographs and text work together brilliantly to create an unforgettable story.”—John Green, New York Times best-selling author of Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns

“Readers searching for the next Harry Potter may want to visit Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.”—CNN

“Riggs deftly moves between fantasy and reality, prose and photography to create an enchanting and at times positively terrifying story.”—Associated Press

“I read all of the Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children books and I loved them.”—Florence of Florence + The Machine

“[A] thrilling, Tim Burton-esque tale with haunting photographs.”—USA Today Pop Candy

“With its X-Men: First Class-meets-time-travel story line, David Lynchian imagery, and rich, eerie detail, it’s no wonder Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children has been snapped up by Twentieth Century Fox. B+”—Entertainment Weekly

“Peculiar’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. Riggs’ chilling, wondrous novel is already headed to the movies.”—People

“You'll love it if you want a good thriller for the summer. It's a mystery, and you'll race to solve it before Jacob figures it out for himself.”—Seventeen

“Delightfully weird.”—Good Housekeeping

“One of the coolest, creepiest YA books.”—PopSugar

About the Author

Ransom Riggs is the author of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Quirk, 2011), a New York Times best seller, as well as its best-selling sequels Hollow City (Quirk, 2013) and Library of Souls (Quirk, 2015). He lives in Santa Monica, CA, with his wife.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Prologue

I had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when extraordinary things began to happen. The first of these came as a terrible shock and, like anything that changes you forever, split my life into halves: Before and After. Like many of the extraordinary things to come, it involved my grandfather, Abraham Portman.
Growing up, Grandpa Portman was the most fascinating person I knew. He had lived in an orphanage, fought in wars, crossed oceans by steamship and deserts on horseback, performed in circuses, knew everything about guns and self-defense and surviving in the wilderness, and spoke at least three languages that weren’t English. It all seemed unfathomably exotic to a kid who’d never left Florida, and I begged him to regale me with stories whenever I saw him. He always obliged, telling them like secrets that could be entrusted only to me.
When I was six I decided that my only chance of having a life half as exciting as Grandpa Portman’s was to become an explorer. He encouraged me by spending afternoons at my side hunched over maps of the world, plotting imaginary expeditions with trails of red pushpins and telling me about the fantastic places I would discover one day. At home I made my ambitions known by parading around with a cardboard tube held to my eye, shouting, “Land ho!” and “Prepare a landing party!” until my parents shooed me outside. I think they worried that my grandfather would infect me with some incurable dreaminess from which I’d never recover—that these fantasies were somehow inoculating me against more practical ambitions—so one day my mother sat me down and explained that I couldn’t become an explorer because everything in the world had already been discovered. I’d been born in the wrong century, and I felt cheated.
I felt even more cheated when I realized that most of Grandpa Portman’s best stories couldn’t possibly be true. The tallest tales were always about his childhood, like how he was born in Poland but at twelve had been shipped off to a children’s home in Wales. When I would ask why he had to leave his parents, his answer was always the same: because the monsters were after him. Poland was simply rotten with them, he said.
“What kind of monsters?” I’d ask, wide-eyed. It became a sort of routine. “Awful hunched-over ones with rotting skin and black eyes,” he’d say. “And they walked like this!” And he’d shamble after me like an old-time movie monster until I ran away laughing.
Every time he described them he’d toss in some lurid new detail: they stank like putrefying trash; they were invisible except for their shadows; a pack of squirming tentacles lurked inside their mouths and could whip out in an instant and pull you into their powerful jaws. It wasn’t long before I had trouble falling asleep, my hyperactive imagination transforming the hiss of tires on wet pavement into labored breathing just outside my window or shadows under the door into twisting gray-black tentacles. I was scared of the monsters but thrilled to imagine my grandfather battling them and surviving to tell the tale.
More fantastic still were his stories about life in the Welsh children’s home. It was an enchanted place, he said, designed to keep kids safe from the monsters, on an island where the sun shined every day and nobody ever got sick or died. Everyone lived together in a big house that was protected by a wise old bird—or so the story went. As I got older, though, I began to have doubts.
“What kind of bird?” I asked him one afternoon at age seven, eyeing him skeptically across the card table where he was letting me win at Monopoly.
“A big hawk who smoked a pipe,” he said.
“You must think I’m pretty dumb, Grandpa.”
He thumbed through his dwindling stack of orange and blue money. “I would never think that about you, Yakob.” I knew I’d offended him because the Polish accent he could never quite shake had come out of hiding, so that would became vood and think became sink. Feeling guilty, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“But why did the monsters want to hurt you?” I asked.
“Because we weren’t like other people. We were peculiar.”
“Peculiar how?”
“Oh, all sorts of ways,” he said. “There was a girl who could fly, a boy who had bees living inside him, a brother and sister who could lift boulders over their heads.”
It was hard to tell if he was being serious. Then again, my grandfather was not known as a teller of jokes. He frowned, reading the doubt on my face.
“Fine, you don’t have to take my word for it,” he said. “I got pictures!” He pushed back his lawn chair and went into the house, leaving me alone on the screened-in lanai. A minute later he came back holding an old cigar box. I leaned in to look as he drew out four wrinkled and yellowing snapshots.
The first was a blurry picture of what looked like a suit of clothes with no person in them. Either that or the person didn’t have a head.
“Sure, he’s got a head!” my grandfather said, grinning. “Only you can’t see it.”
“Why not? Is he invisible?”
“Hey, look at the brain on this one!” He raised his eyebrows as if I’d surprised him with my powers of deduction. “Millard, his name was. Funny kid. Sometimes he’d say, ‘Hey Abe, I know what you did today,’ and he’d tell you where you’d been, what you had to eat, if you picked your nose when you thought nobody was looking. Sometimes he’d follow you, quiet as a mouse, with no clothes on so you couldn’t see him—just watching!” He shook his head. “Of all the things, eh?”
He slipped me another photo. Once I’d had a moment to look at it, he said, “So? What do you see?”
“A little girl?”
“And?”
“She’s wearing a crown.”
He tapped the bottom of the picture. “What about her feet?”
I held the snapshot closer. The girl’s feet weren’t touching the ground. But she wasn’t jumping—she seemed to be floating in the air. My jaw fell open.
“She’s flying!”
“Close,” my grandfather said. “She’s levitating. Only she couldn’t control herself too well, so sometimes we had to tie a rope around her to keep her from floating away!”
My eyes were glued to her haunting, doll-like face. “Is it real?”
“Of course it is,” he said gruffly, taking the picture and replacing it with another, this one of a scrawny boy lifting a boulder. “Victor and his sister weren’t so smart,” he said, “but boy were they strong!”
“He doesn’t look strong,” I said, studying the boy’s skinny arms.
“Trust me, he was. I tried to arm-wrestle him once and he just about tore my hand off!”
But the strangest photo was the last one. It was the back of somebody’s head, with a face painted on it.
I stared at the last photo as Grandpa Portman explained. “He had two mouths, see? One in the front and one in the back. That’s why he got so big and fat!”
“But it’s fake,” I said. “The face is just painted on.”
“Sure, the paint’s fake. It was for a circus show. But I’m telling you, he had two mouths. You don’t believe me?”
I thought about it, looking at the pictures and then at my grandfather, his face so earnest and open. What reason would he have to lie?
“I believe you,” I said.
And I really did believe him—for a few years, at least—though mostly because I wanted to, like other kids my age wanted to believe in Santa Claus. We cling to our fairy tales until the price for believing them becomes too high, which for me was the day in second grade when Robbie Jensen pantsed me at lunch in front of a table of girls and announced that I believed in fairies. It was just deserts, I suppose, for repeating my grandfather’s stories at school but in those humiliating seconds I foresaw the moniker “fairy boy” trailing me for years and, rightly or not, I resented him for it.
Grandpa Portman picked me up from school that afternoon, as he often did when both my parents were working. I climbed into the passenger seat of his old Pontiac and declared that I didn’t believe in his fairy stories anymore.
“What fairy stories?” he said, peering at me over his glasses.
“You know. The stories. About the kids and the monsters.”
He seemed confused. “Who said anything about fairies?”
I told him that a made-up story and a fairy tale were the same thing, and that fairy tales were for pants-wetting babies, and that I knew his photos and stories were fakes. I expected him to get mad or put up a fight, but instead he just said, “Okay,” and threw the Pontiac into drive. With a stab of his foot on the accelerator we lurched away from the curb. And that was the end of it.
I guess he’d seen it coming—I had to grow out of them eventually—but he dropped the whole thing so quickly it left me feeling like I’d been lied to. I couldn’t understand why he’d made up all that stuff, tricked me into believing that extraordinary things were possible when they weren’t. It wasn’t until a few years later that my dad explained it to me: Grandpa had told him some of the same stories when he was a kid, and they weren’t lies, exactly, but exaggerated versions of the truth—because the story of Grandpa Portman’s childhood wasn’t a fairy tale at all. It was a horror story.
My grandfather was the only member of his family to escape Poland before the Second World War broke out. He was twelve years old when his parents sent him into the arms of strangers, putting their youngest son on a train to Britain with nothing more than a suitcase and the clothes on his back. It was a one-way ticket. He never saw his mother or father again, or his older brothers, his cousins, his aunts and uncles. Each one would be dead before his sixteenth birthday, killed by the monsters he had so narrowly escaped. But these weren’t the kind of monsters that had tentacles and rotting skin, the kind a seven-year-old might be able to wrap his mind around—they were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don’t recognize them for what they are until it’s too late.
Like the monsters, the enchanted-island story was also a truth in disguise. Compared to the horrors of mainland Europe, the children’s home that had taken in my grandfather must’ve seemed like a paradise, and so in his stories it had become one: a safe haven of endless summers and guardian angels and magical children, who couldn’t really fly or turn invisible or lift boulders, of course. The peculiarity for which they’d been hunted was simply their Jewishness. They were orphans of war, washed up on that little island in a tide of blood. What made them amazing wasn’t that they had miraculous powers; that they had escaped the ghettos and gas chambers was miracle enough.
I stopped asking my grandfather to tell me stories, and I think secretly he was relieved. An air of mystery closed around the details of his early life. I didn’t pry. He had been through hell and had a right to his secrets. I felt ashamed for having been jealous of his life, considering the price he’d paid for it, and I tried to feel lucky for the safe and unextraordinary one that I had done nothing to deserve.
Then, a few years later, when I was fifteen, an extraordinary and terrible thing happened, and there was only Before and After.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004FGMDOQ
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Quirk Books
Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 7, 2011
Edition ‏ : ‎ 1st
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 130.3 MB
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 358 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781594744761
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1594745133
Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Grade level ‏ : ‎ 9 - 12
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 890L
Book 1 of 6 ‏ : ‎ Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 12+ years, from customers

Best Sellers Rank: #53,207 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
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- #52 in Teen & Young Adult Mystery & Thriller Action & Adventure
- #55 in Teen & Young Adult Mysteries & Detective Stories

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37,459 ratings

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Ransom Riggs

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Ransom Riggs was born on a farm in Maryland and grew up in Florida, but now makes his home in the land of peculiar children: Southern California, where he lives with his wife, bestselling author Tahereh Mafi. Ransom was raised on a steady diet of ghost stories and British comedy, which probably explains the novels he writes. He’s the author of the #1 bestselling Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children series, the first of which was adapted into a major motion picture from 20th Century Fox, directed by Tim Burton.

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Customers say

Customers praise the book's creative storyline and writing style, with one noting how vividly the scenes are described. The book features authentic vintage photos that enhance the narrative, and customers appreciate its unique concept and character development, with one review highlighting how each character has their own unique voice. While the book appeals to a wide age range, including young teens, opinions about its creepiness are mixed, with some finding the right amount of horror while others say it's not particularly scary or exciting. The pacing receives mixed reactions, with some finding it fast-paced while others describe it as slow.

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Readability Pictures Imagination Character development Book for all ages Creepiness Pace

5,032 customers mention "Readability"4,629 positive403 negative

Customers find the book highly readable, describing it as an intriguing tale that captivates readers with its creative storyline and flawless blend of mystery and adventure.

"...So off to Cairnholm go father and son. Cairnholm is a strange island, rough and primitive. Frank wants to bird...." Read more

"...Rigg's writing style is a big plus, although the 1st person narrations of the 16 yr old hero seem much more eloquently phrased than your average..." Read more

"...novel to any lovers of historical fiction, or those who simply love a good fairy tale. This novel combines the best of both worlds...." Read more

"...The story was lacking any sort of luster. Sure, it had romance, adventure, fighting, and realistic images, but I felt it was lacking creativity..." Read more

1,023 customers mention "Pictures"925 positive98 negative

Customers appreciate the pictures in the book, particularly noting the authentic vintage photos and how they complement the text, with one customer mentioning how they add a delightful creepiness to the story.

"...many old black and white snapshots and studio portraits of children dressed in Halloween costumes, dress clothes and clothes worn many years ago,..." Read more

"...There was, to me, a seamless integration of the photos into the storytelling...." Read more

"...When you learn that all these photos are actual vintage photographs (most unaltered), collected by the author, it adds to the creepy vibe..." Read more

"...I thought the pictures did a great job of giving a visual to the events in the story. They put a real face to the characters in the story...." Read more

776 customers mention "Imagination"776 positive0 negative

Customers praise the author's incredible imagination, with one customer noting how vividly they brought the world to life.

"...Then Jacob goes through a time loop, ends back in time. The house is beautiful, clean, the food is good...." Read more

"...: I believe the "more-adult language" is not only appropriate, but authentic. I don't feel that it is gratuitous, or strictly for "shock value."..." Read more

"...Florida, and then the Island are fully realized and contribute well to the tone of the book...." Read more

"...The characters were engaging, very well fleshed out and left you wanting to get to know them even better...." Read more

616 customers mention "Character development"526 positive90 negative

Customers appreciate the character development in the book, finding them captivating and giving the story a unique personality, with one customer noting that each character has their own distinct voice.

"...The acting in the trailer is quite adequate as well, and it manages to immediately make you want to buy the book...." Read more

"...novels with a historical undertone (such as this) are: Organic characters and environments, both past and present...." Read more

"...The characters are interesting and generally well done, and the backdrops, first of Florida, and then the Island are fully realized and contribute..." Read more

"...For me, this was a very well written novel. The characters were engaging, very well fleshed out and left you wanting to get to know them even better..." Read more

578 customers mention "Book for all ages"488 positive90 negative

Customers appreciate that the book is suitable for all ages, appealing particularly to young teens, with one customer noting it features enchanted children who never age.

"...Miss Peregrine, the name of a bird of prey, is a good housemother, good for the orphans. She keeps them in check, she loves them...." Read more

"...is a great read, and a fine example of a YA novel not only accessible for adults, but enjoyable as well...." Read more

"...horror fans, murder mystery aficionados, fantasy lovers, Young Adult fans, or anyone looking for an interesting or "peculiar" read...." Read more

"...Riggs' novel is great for both YA and adults alike, and I was truly captivated by it...." Read more

503 customers mention "Creepiness"270 positive233 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the creepiness of the book, with some appreciating the right amount of horror elements while others find the story not particularly scary or exciting.

"...It also captures interest by use of eerie, unsettling photographs which look like they come right out of a freak show...." Read more

"...It is a great book for YAs, especially boys, but would be frightening for younger children...." Read more

"...photographs (most unaltered), collected by the author, it adds to the creepy vibe (what were those people doing?) rather than detracts from it...." Read more

"...Since the story had no real plot, the only reason the movie has been made was because of the special-effects, and the very popular "childhood..." Read more

486 customers mention "Pace"316 positive170 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the pacing of the book, with some finding it a quick read while others describe it as super slow and taking a while to get going.

"...This tends to make the novel a very fast reader, one which is filled with believable well described action...." Read more

"...The pace was good, there were very few places that I would say that the story lagged or slowed down...." Read more

"...That's it. I found the pacing to be a bit slow. I'd read a chapter, then I'd get bored with it and go off to do something else...." Read more

"...I recommend this book for anyone who wants a fairly quick read, enjoys elements of fantasy and the supernatural, and is okay with graphic violence...." Read more

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josephine briggs
The writer has a great imagination integrating the old photographs into the story
Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2014
Verified Purchase

When I saw the name of the book I thought it concerned children who were mentally or emotionally troubled. Not so.

The book contains many old black and white snapshots and studio portraits of children dressed in Halloween costumes, dress clothes and clothes worn many years ago, posed in unusual poses. The writer has a great imagination integrating the old photographs into the story. It is a great book for YAs, especially boys, but would be frightening for younger children.

The book begins with Jacob Portman, going on sixteen, who feels he does not belong to his own world, south Florida's west coast. His mother is a business woman, wealthy, working in the family business, excellent in business. not much for family life. The name of the family business is Smart Aid, growing all over Florida. Jacob is being groomed for the business, he doesn't want this for his lifes work. His father is a would be ornithologist, planning a book on birds which has yet to come to fruition. Both parents are busy with their own lives and feel that because Jacob gets whatever he wants they have done a good job. Jacob has one friend, Ricky, he is not popular. But he had Grandpa Portman who told Jacob stories about the time he escaped from the Nazis when he was young and as a child was sent to an orphanage on Cairnholm, off the coast of Wales. He told Jacob about the strange people, monsters after the kids and he showed his grandson some of the photos of these kids, taken many years ago, old antique photos. Jacob grew too old for such stories, they were all silly. His parents agreed. Then one night Jacob and Ricky went to visit Grandpa. Grandpa lay dead. Jacob saw a monster lurking in the bushes. He swore he saw a monster, Ricky saw nothing. Just possible a wild animal. Jacob was in a bad state for months. His parents found a good psychiatrist. There is a letter from the orphanage Grandpa had spend so much of his childhood from the old headmistress. Could she still be alive? Jacob wants to go to Cairnholm to see where Grandpa had grown up. His psychiatrist agrees it would be good. As for his father, the island is wonderful for birding. So off to Cairnholm go father and son. Cairnholm is a strange island, rough and primitive. Frank wants to bird. Jacob wants to see the old orphanage. Is it real? Was it a figment of Grandpa's imagination? Jacob wants to know the truth. Jacob found a letter among Grandpa's letters. It was from the old orphanage Grandpa had spend much of his childhood, from the old headmistress. Could the old lady still be alive? Jacob wants to go to Cairnholm to see where Grandps had talked so much about. His psychiatrist agreed that it would be good for the boy. And as for father, the island was wonderful for birding which excited Frank Portman. So off to Cairnholm go father and son.

This is a strange island, rough, primitive not what the pair are used to. Frank wants to bird, Jacob wants to find the old orphanage that Grandpa had spoke of. Is it real or a figment of the old man's imagination. Two tough teenage boys are told to show Jacob where the old house is located. The boys take him to a bog and tell him where the house is located. The pair, good friends, refuse to accompany him the rest of the way. Why?

Jocob soldiered on. This is an old ruined house, falling apart, decrepid, old, back in time, falling apart. Everything in the house is falling apart, not worth keeping. Then Jacob goes through a time loop, ends back in time. The house is beautiful, clean, the food is good. Miss Peregrine, the name of a bird of prey, is a good housemother, good for the orphans. She keeps them in check, she loves them. Jacob is impressed. The time stops. It is always September 3, 1940. There is a small village close to the orphanage. The villagers do the same thing every day. The orphans are ordinary kids to a point. They are different than ordinary kids. They really are peculiar as Jacob finds out. Stuck in a time loop these kids are in their eighties. Thise book is quite an adventure for young boys. The author writes well and has a wonderful imagination.

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Beginning hauntingly captures Interest, but turns to speed reader in the end
Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2011
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Ransom Riggs' very first novel " Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" appears to be aimed for young adult audience but manages to capture the interest of a wide range of people partly due to it's reference to WWII, and especially the treatment of Polish Jews. It also captures interest by use of eerie, unsettling photographs which look like they come right out of a freak show. The author managed to weave a plot around it, which later in the story becomes burdened with technical problems. Riggs has limited the vague explanations just barely enough to allow it to work logistically for the reader.

But in doing so, it immediately loses most of the mysteriously eerie beckoning which captured the reader's interest in the first place. It is replaced with fairly common themes being thrown at audiences today in just about every scif-fi movie of good versus evil, and those with special powers vs those without powers. However it is not necessarily clear on who is good/evil, and that manages to help keep the reader's interest.

In order to continue to keep the reader's interest in the upcoming books, he will need to tie together some of these glaring details. This will take some doing, as there seems no way to weave the eerie haunting appeal back into the story and hopefully the author has a workable plan.

What is impressive is the fact that Ransom Riggs also produced his own book trailer, and did a very excellent job at it. A quick web search using the Author's name you'll be sure to find his personal youtube site, where you can also see other videos he has made.

The making of the book trailer, (and the book) required significant time on the author's part from finding old photographs (apparently one of his hobbies) to traveling to Europe to get video footage of abandoned mansions. The acting in the trailer is quite adequate as well, and it manages to immediately make you want to buy the book.

Rigg's writing style is a big plus, although the 1st person narrations of the 16 yr old hero seem much more eloquently phrased than your average American teenager. Because the boy was raised in a post WWII Jewish family lends credence to this in spite of the odds that most American kids would not talk that way. The grandfather's use of the Jewish pronunciation of Jacob's name also lends credence and adds to the historical/cultural flavor. It's a nice twist, which tends to make the main character more believable (and likeable).

Rigg's vivid descriptions of physical/visual/taste/smell seemed to be just right, and the reader is not overly bogged down with meaningless detail. This tends to make the novel a very fast reader, one which is filled with believable well described action. However I couldn't help noticing that at the beginning of the book, I was savoring every detail, while towards the end I was doing more speed reading.

There are a few incidents of religious cursing, and some otherwise minor objectionable language (British Pub language). There is some violence, death, and creepy talking to the dead. There are no lewd sex scenes, but a relationship that very well may lead in that direction in upcoming books.

As some have already pointed out... the problem with reading on a Kindle is that much of the picture detail is lost...many with handwritten notes scribbled on them. It may be that those people do not know how to zoom in on a picture in a Kindle. While I own a Kindle, I'm not sure about the Kindle zoom function, as I read my copy of this novel on my laptop using Amazon's online Kindle Viewer. I used the internet web page zoom function. So this issue seems only a minor nuisance.

My gut feeling is the book should be rated a 3 for logistical problems, and the fact that the "haunting beckoning" aspect is lost 2/3 into the book, causing many readers to feel let down. But there is a chance the author can pull it off on the next book, and so I give it 4 stars.
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>Here are just some of the issues I see that will need to be worked out:

1. Miss Peregrine seemed to have a sixth sense in that she knew that Jacob was on the island, and actually flew in his window, but didn't seem to know anything about how to avoid the wight when it came, in spite of being told it was on the island by Jacob, and especially at being so experienced in protecting the children for years. She even stated that she was concerned Jacob was followed, but fails to fully explain to Jacob how the monsters/wights work. She is either a very wise bird or a complete birdbrain. Which is is? The inconsistency needs explaining.

2. The operation of the birds and time loops seems to indicate that the bird ladies are also able to induce a "feel good" effect in the loops, keeping the "children" somewhat sedated & immature even though they are of great age, and are literally "bored to death". So much so that for years they go behind Peregrine's back and cause havoc with the townsfolk. Like 'Groundhog Day" gone sick. This power of the bird ladies goes well beyond manipulation of time and shapechanging. It is also manipulation of people's minds. So if the birdies are so powerful, how can a wight capture them unawares so easily? Just because they're using contacts? (BTW, having white eyes mean no pupils or irises - minor technical flub on author's part in only saying "no pupils" - I'm surprised the editors didn't catch it)

3. It's unexplained why Jacob's grandpa didn't spot the wight hanging around the house for years (gardener & neighbor) in spite of being experienced at dealing with them. It might be good to do a book focused mainly on grandpa and events around WWII to solve this. This might also revitalize the "haunting appealing" aspect which was lost in the latter half of 1st book. Cantankerous Polish grandpas help with that. Could flash back/forth in his life.

4. The way the time loops work seems inconsistent. If an apple (or a person) was taken from the loop, and rots in present day (in a few hours) as if the years of time were applied to it, but the opposite is not true, isn't that inconsistent? If Jacob enters the time loop in the past why isn't he reduced to a chromosome? Needs explaining.

5. The explanation was given that if the kids left the time loop into present day for more than a few hours, they would die. So how is it that the kids can go talk to Jacob's dad in the end of the book? This seems unexplainable especially considering the fact that the loop did not reset in 1940, how are they even able to get to present day? You no longer have a resetting loop, but you somehow still have a time tunnel between 1940 and present day? The author completely fails to explain this, and simply rushes the reader right through it. This will need to be explained (likely whenever Miss Peregrine comes to her senses).

6. With the explanation of item 3, should also come the explanation of how "loop traveling" works (mentioned at the end of the book, wights using it). Since the children have a map of the time loops, its only expected that they'll be doing some traveling of their own.

7. Hopefully it will be explained why they kept a body of a dead boy around and continued to awake him even though he would beg to be allowed to die? That is just a weird...cruel... scene which leaves you wondering, and has no explanation? Is Miss Peregrine some sort of pervert?

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cafi80
Großartiger Phantasieroman mit Parallelen zur realen Welt
Reviewed in Germany on April 14, 2019
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Die Novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children ist das Erstlingswerk des Autors Ransom Rigg. Mithilfe seines Protagonisten Jacob entführt er seinen Leser in eine für ihn unbekannte Welt, die es zu entdecken gilt.

Von klein auf erzählt der Großvater Jakob immer wieder fantastische Geschichten von besonderen Kindern und Monstern. Doch je älter er wird, je mehr stellt er diese Geschichten in Frage, bis er sie schließlich als Märchen verwirft. Doch was hat der tragische Tod des Großvaters und seine letzten Worte zu bedeuten. Kann es wirklich sein, dass seine Geschichten nicht der Fantasie entsprungen sind. Und wieso halten Jakob alle für verrückt, obwohl er sicher ist, dass sein Großvater von einem seltsamen Wesen getötet wurde. Ja selbst sein bester Freund, der dabei war, erzählt eine vollkommen andere Geschichte.

Jakob entschließt sich dem Rätsel des Großvaters auf die Spur zu kommen und reist auf die Insel, wo die besonderen Kinder leben sollen, um sich seiner klar zu werden. Doch je mehr er versucht das Rätsel zu lösen, je unübersichtlicher wird die Situation. Ohne das er sich versieht, befindet er sich in einer fantastischen Welt, die an der Oberfläche nur Gutes zu haben scheint. Doch die heile Fassade trügt. Unbewusst begibt er sich immer mehr in Gefahr und wird vom Entdecker zum Gejagten.

Riggs Werk ist an der Oberfläche ein spannender Phantasieroman, der seinen Leser in den Bann zieht. Ferner bietet dieser aber noch weitere Ebenen, die dem aufmerksamen Leser nicht entgehen sollten. Neben dem Thema Anderssein und der damit verbunden Ausgrenzung bietet der Roman eine Reflexionsmöglichkeit über die Sinnhaftigkeit eines unendlichen Lebens.

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Diana from Spain
Totalmente recomendable, muy bueno.
Reviewed in Spain on June 10, 2014
Verified Purchase
Me ha gustado mucho este libro. Soy una voraz lectora de libros juveniles y tengo que decir que este libro es muy original. Me gustan los personajes, sus diatribas, sus aventuras, sus enredos. Todo. El libro te engancha; los malos no son tontos y los buenos no son tan listos, por lo que se hace todo mas creíble, mas cercano. Y el segundo libro es también fantástico. Una pena que no haya salido el tercero todavía!.

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BLACK PERSEO
Wow
Reviewed in Mexico on February 12, 2020
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Libro en pasta blanda en inglés. Un historia de fantasía y aventura muy entretenida y envolvente. Con un final algo abrupto que insitan al lector a continuar con el siguiente volumen. Una presentación muy llamativa con fotografías entre el texto haciendo alucion a la narración, haciendo aún más fácil adentrarse a su mundo. Muy recomendable

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WONDERFUL
Reviewed in Italy on January 26, 2017
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I was fascinated by the movie and so decided to read the book... well written, you get caught in the story as if you were there, in Wales, searching for Miss Peregrine... and Abe.
Definitely lovely, it's really good value.

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Buyer in Japan
Good first book in what appears to be a series.
Reviewed in Japan on January 16, 2014
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Nicely paced. Good characters. Read the book in one sitting on an eight-hour flight. Looking forward to sequels.

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5.0 out of 5 stars The writer has a great imagination integrating the old photographs into the story

4.0 out of 5 stars Beginning hauntingly captures Interest, but turns to speed reader in the end

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5.0 out of 5 stars Großartiger Phantasieroman mit Parallelen zur realen Welt

5.0 out of 5 stars Totalmente recomendable, muy bueno.

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow

5.0 out of 5 stars WONDERFUL

4.0 out of 5 stars Good first book in what appears to be a series.

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The writer has a great imagination integrating the old photographs into the story

Beginning hauntingly captures Interest, but turns to speed reader in the end

Großartiger Phantasieroman mit Parallelen zur realen Welt

Totalmente recomendable, muy bueno.

Wow

WONDERFUL

Good first book in what appears to be a series.