Likewise, Jacob didn't realize that the monsters that Grandpa warned him about were real until it was too late, as he looks up from the dying man to see the horrifying creature...and the monster sees Jacob.
Author Ransom Riggs started collecting old photos some years ago, drawn to the captions often written on them. For the most peculiar images, he began inventing their backstories and what the oddest captions might have been.
In this thriller, Riggs' imagination has gone far beyond those idea seeds planted by the old photos, as he brings the "peculiar children" to life, as well as the monsters that pursue them...and Jacob.
**kmm
Book info: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children / by Ransom Riggs. Quirk Books, 2011. [author's blog] [publisher site] [book trailer]
Recommendation: Jacob stopped believing in Grandpa’s monster stories years ago, but what else could kill someone so thoroughly? Fatally attacked, Grandpa gasps that Jacob “must go to the island” where he will be safe, as he sees the blackened creature of his nightmares disappear into the Florida woods.
Now 16 year old Jacob has the nightmares, the monster alternating with the old photos of “peculiar children” who were his grandpa’s friends at the Welsh orphanage which rescued him from the Holocaust – an invisible boy, the floating girl…real or faked? Clues found at Grandpa’s house convince him that he must find that island and the orphanage, or go insane!
Thankfully, his psychiatrist agrees, so Jacob and his dad head for Wales, and the mystery grows deeper. If the orphanage was bombed-out in 1940, how did Grandpa get there later? Why can Jacob hear voices in the old building when no one else can? Who is following them on the tiny island?
As the past and present tangle and unravel, Jacob finds the old photos to be new truths as the monsters pursue children for their peculiar talents. A chilling debut novel for very mature readers which ponders how the balance point between good and evil loops through human history…
(One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
Love that you put for mature readers after the whole WSJ article frenzy! Sounds like a great read, but not one my 11 year old is quite ready for. I, on other hand always need a new book to turn to. Love, love, love your posts!
ReplyDeleteTia - This one's pretty scary, so wait till your daughter is ready for it. Reading about Grandpa being disemboweled would give the squeamish soul nightmares...
ReplyDeleteBut YOU should grab this one now! I won't read guts-and-gore-Stephen-King-scary books, but Miss Peregrine's is intellectually-frightening (in a good way).
**Katy