Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Ransom Riggs. Quirk, $17.99 (352p) ISBN 978-1-59474-476-1
Riggs's atmospheric first novel concerns 16-year-old Jacob, a tightly wound but otherwise ordinary teenager who is "unusually susceptible to nightmares, night terrors, the Creeps, the Willies, and Seeing Things That Aren't Really There." When Jacob's grandfather, Abe, a WWII veteran, is savagely murdered, Jacob has a nervous breakdown, in part because he believes that his grandfather was killed by a monster that only they could see. On his psychiatrist's advice, Jacob and his father travel from their home in Florida to Cairnholm Island off the coast of Wales, which, during the war, housed Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Abe, a Jewish refugee from the Nazis, lived there before enlisting, and the mysteries of his life and death lead Jacob back to that institution. Nearly 50 unsettling vintage photographs appear throughout, forming the framework of this dark but empowering tale, as Riggs creates supernatural backstories and identities for those pictured in them (a boy crawling with bees, a girl with untamed hair carrying a chicken). It's an enjoyable, eccentric read, distinguished by well-developed characters, a believable Welsh setting, and some very creepy monsters. Ages 12–up. (June)
Details
Reviewed on: 04/25/2011
Release date: 06/01/2011
Genre: Children's
Downloadable Audio - 1 pages - 9780307913029
Open Ebook - 256 pages - 9781594745133
Paperback - 412 pages - 9786070714818
Hardcover - 412 pages - 9788427900301
Paperback - 384 pages - 9789861857459
Hardcover - 348 pages - 9781594744761
Paperback - 483 pages - 9781410450234
Prebound-Glued - 382 pages - 9780606320818
Paperback - 352 pages - 9781594746062
Hardcover - 272 pages - 9780316245289
Paperback - 392 pages - 9781594749025
Paperback - 382 pages - 9781594746031
Audio book sample courtesy of Penguin Random House Audio