Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children Book Review: 8.5/10

“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” (Ransom Riggs 12).

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is about a teenage boy named Jacob Portman, whose life was forever changed due to peculiar circumstances. When Jacob was young his favorite person in the world to listen to was his grandfather Abe’s stories, or at least, that’s what they seemed to be. Abe told Jacob about this amazing island where he lived when he was a boy after he escaped from Portland; on this island, he fought monsters and was friends with the most unusually gifted people. These people were called peculiars. Not only did he tell him stories, but his grandfather had pictures as well, such as the twins, Oliver Wattle, a levitating girl named Olive, a girl that holds fire and many others.

Though not everything was perfect on the island there were monsters after the peculiars, which were called hollowgasts, an evil soulless creature that fed off of peculiars and killed horrifically. Throughout the novel Jacob struggles to fight his inner demons and the actual demons that only he can see.

There are 50 photos that are shown throughout the book that intensely enhance the novel’s overall environment when reading the book.

Visit the Website for Ransom Riggs

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children Movie Review: 5/10

I went to see the movie Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children on November 13th and was excited to see how Tim Burton, one of my favorite directors of all time, produced one of my favorite books. Based off of his other adaptations of books and his own creative animated movies, I was expecting his rendition of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children to be as intriguing as his other movies were; however, I was terribly mistaken.

The book Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children was highly descriptive of the characters and the setting, especially because the genre is fantasy, and even though the movies are never as descriptive as the book, or 100% accurate, this portrayal was just plain horrendous; however, not as bad as the Percy Jackson fiasco. Not only were the actors unable to portray their characters, but they decided to switch the main female protagonist from the book, Emma, with a character who is barely mentioned, Olive. They switched both of their powers and did not pay enough attention to what the main parts of the book are; they also forgot other crucial characters.

The acting was subpar as well, and it was as if none of them were able to portray any emotions at all! However, for those who wish to go see it and did not read the book, I would advise to watch it at home because the quality of the show was not anything spectacular that needs to be shown on the big screen. Overall, I feel as if the only thing that the producers took from the original novel was the pictures put in it.