Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2011) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters edit see section history

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• Jacob Portman: The book's protagonist. A sixteen-year-old who searches for the truth behind his grandfather's life.
• Abraham Portman: Jacob's grandfather, a teller of fabulous stories about his childhood that fascinate the young Jacob at first, before he outgrows the fantastic tales.
• Franklin Portman: Jacob's father. An amateur ornothologist, he agrees to accompany Jacob to Cairnholm since he can study the birdlife on the island.
• Susan Portman: Jacob's paternal aunt, Abraham's daughter, Franklin's sister.
• Ricky: Jacob's best and only friend in his hometown in Florida. He's the brawn to Jacob's brains.
• Dr. Golan: A psychiatrist who helps Jacob deal with the psychological trauma of his grandfather's death.
• Kev: The owner of the Priest Hole, a tavern with the only room for let on Cairnholm.
• Dylan: Son of Cairnholm's butcher, he is a few years older than Jacob and has a penchant for rapping. Shows Jacob the way to the abandoned orphanage on Cairnholm.
• Worm: A local to Cairnholm and friend of Dylan.
• Martin Pagett: Curator of the museum in a converted ancient church on Cairnholm. Befriends Jacob.
• Oggie: Martin Pagett's old uncle.
• Alma LeFay Peregrine: The headmistress of a home for orphans on Cairnholm island.
• Emma Bloom: One of the peculiar children at Miss Peregrine's orphanage and Jacob's closest ally.
• Millard Nullings: One of the peculiar children at Miss Peregrine's orphanage.
• Bronwyn Bruntley: One of the peculiar children at Miss Peregrine's orphanage.
• Olive: One of the peculiar children at Miss Peregrine's orphanage.
• Hugh: One of the peculiar children at Miss Peregrine's orphanage.
• Claire Densmore: One of the peculiar children at Miss Peregrine's orphanage.
• Fiona: One of the peculiar children at Miss Peregrine's orphanage.
• Horace: One of the peculiar children at Miss Peregrine's orphanage.
• Esmerelda Avocet: An old friend of Miss Peregrine's.
• Malthus: An evil character against whom Jacob and his friends must defend the orphanage.

Quotes edit see section history

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• ““I had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when extraordinary things began to happen.””

  Jacob Portman

• “I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary I was.”

  Jacob Portman

• “Soon I passed the shack, dim outlines of sheep huddled inside against the chill, and then the mist shrouded bog, silent and ghostly. I thought about the twenty-seven-hundred-year-old resident of Cairnholm’s museum and wondered how many more like him these fields held, undiscovered, arrested in death; how many more had given up their lives here, looking for heaven.”

  Jacob Portman

• “Sometimes you just need to go through a door.”

  Jacob Portman

• “When someone won’t let you in, eventually you stop knocking.”

  Franklin Portman

• “You’re right, Dad. Dr. Golan did help me. But that doesn’t mean he has to control every aspect of my life. I mean, Jesus, you and mom might as well buy me one of those little bracelets that says What Would Golan Do? That way I can ask myself before I do anything. Before I take a dump. How would Dr. Golan want me to take this dump? Should I bank it off the side or go straight down the middle? What would be the most psychologically beneficial dump I could take?”

  Jacob Portman

• “I'm not meant to tell you this, but common people can't pass through time loops.”

  Emma Bloom

Setting & Locations edit see section history

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• Florida: Jacob's home in America.
• Wales: A country in the southwest of Briton, where most of the story is set.
• Cairnholm Island: An island in Wales, site for the Home for Peculiar Children. This Island does not exist.
• Priest Hole: The only lodging on the island; where Jacob and his father stay. Named for hidden doors through which priests could escape during the persecution of Catholics during WWII.
• The Home for Peculiar Children: A bombed, ruined old house on the far side of Cairnholm Island where Jacob's grandfather told him he spent his childhood to escape the monsters.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Somnolent: Causing or suggestive of drowsiness.
• Lanai: A porch or veranda.
• Rattan: The thin pliable stems of a palm, used to make furniture.
• Scabrous: Rough and covered with, or as if with, scabs.
• Purl: Flow with a swirling motion and babbling sound.
• Cairn: A prehistoric burial mound made of stones.
• Tussock: A small area of grass that is thicker or longer than the grass growing around it.
• Wight: An Anglo-Saxon word meaning "man" or "person", more commonly used to mean "a spirit, ghost, or other supernatural being". In this book, a wight is a hollow who has fed on enough peculiars to pass for a normal human being. Marked by a lack of pupils in their eyes.
• Patina: A thin sheen or film on the surface of something; an impression or appearance of a certain quality.
• Wainscoting: Wooden paneling that lines the lower part of the walls of a room
• Coerlfolc: An Anglo-Saxon compound word: "coerl", originally meaning slave but with a later meaning of a common free man, and "folk", meaning folk or people. All those humans who are not peculiars.
• Syndrigast: An Anglo-Saxon compound word: "syndri", meaning sundered or separate, and "gast", meaning spirit. All those humans who have some peculiar ability or attribute, who must hide from normal human society.
• Ymbryne: An Anglo-Saxon compound word: "ymb", meaning time, and "ryne", meaning a course or circuit; together, meaning a year's course or anniversary, or, literally, a time loop. In the book, a woman who can manipulate time to create loops of continuous time within a single day.
• Homunculus: A very small human or humanoid creature, often one which is made artificially, as through alchemy.
• Hollowgast: A compound word formed from the English "hollow", and the Anglo Saxon "gast", meaning spirit. A peculiar whose soul was hollowed out as a result of immoral and dangerous experiments with time, and now is invisible even to most peculiars, and who hunts and devours them in an effort to escape their tortured state.
• doppelganger: A ghostly counterpart of a person; a ghostly double of a living person.

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• The Old Man: An ancient mummy that was preserved beneath the island's bog. His grave marks the entrance to the time loop.
• Peregrine Falcon: A particular type of bird. They are like shape-shifters in the way they streamline their bodies while flying.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Ransom Riggs (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• The Kitschies (Finalist, 2011: The Golden Tentacle for Best Debut Novel, Finalist)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 813.6

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Mature situations and language

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Teens › Science Fiction & Fantasy › Science Fiction
• Books › Teens › Science Fiction & Fantasy › Fantasy

More Books Like This edit see section history