Monday, August 13, 2012

Miss Beregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Just as a side note...I haven't stopped reading teen fiction!  I've just been reading all sorts of other things too.

So...here's all about Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children:

Jacob has always wanted to believe his grandfather's stories about the unusual children he knew in the 1940s.  The pictures he had, the stories he told, and the experiences he shared all fascinated Jacob, from a very early age.  As Jacob grew older, though, he had a harder time believing stories about a girl who floated about the ground, a boy filled with bees, not to mention all the other peculiarities. 

When his grandfather calls one day in a panic because he can't get into his gun cabinet, Jacob thinks he's finally lost his marbles.  But when he finds his grandfather dying in the forest behind his house, he can't deny something's going on.  Especially when Jacob sees a creature not far off that no one else seems to see.

Following his grandfather's directions, Jacob sets off for a remote island off the coast of Wales, to find Miss Peregrine and get the answers he seeks.  What he discovers is his grandfather may not have been making up anything at all...

I did enjoy this book and story, but it wasn't at all what I was expecting.  The beginning half, when Jacob is learning about the different peculiar "children", I thought this would be something along the lines of a scary freak show.  This story follows a fantasy line more closely than a mystery, although it takes most of the book to realize that.  It sounds, from the ending, like there is a sequel in the mix.