As the novel opens Jacob Portman is just a
rich American kid with an eccentric Grandpa, Abraham, who backs up wild tales
of his youth with a few weird looking photographs. These date from the Second
World War when, as the only survivor of his Jewish family in Poland, he was
placed at Miss Peregrine’s orphanage on a remote island off the coast of Wales.
Abraham is suffering from paranoia, but that
doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you, and one day Jacob finds his Grandpa
dying from horrific wounds. His parting gifts to his grandson are some
enigmatic last words, an old letter from Miss Peregrine, and the box of photos.
Suffering post-traumatic hallucinations and
nightmares Jacob gets a shrink who concludes Jacob is obsessed with his
Grandpa’s mysterious past and would benefit from a trip to Wales to confront
reality.
So the action switches to the Island of
Cairnholm where Jacob discovers the derelict, bombed out orphanage, yet more
photos, and crucially a time portal that allows him to step back into September
1940 when the establishment was in full swing and occupied by real life
children with peculiar talents.
But they are under threat from both the
Luftwaffe bombing raids and their more eternal enemies – the ‘hollowgasts’ - and Jacob’s own undiscovered talent is needed
to help defend the Home for Peculiar Children.
The first person narrative takes the story
along briskly, and though possibly aimed at the older teen fiction market, the
use of vintage photographs throughout makes it enough of a curiosity to interest
adults as well. The downside of the photographs is an occasional contrived
reference but this does not detract from the story or the overall appeal of the
book.
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