about the book
For those of you who have read the original novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, you are familiar with how author Ransom Riggs sprinkled strange vintage photos into the story. Now, using a graphic novel format, the whimsical imagery and eerie characters come to life. It all starts with a boy, Jacob, who loves his grandfather.
Grandfather Abraham is an amazing man who tells the greatest stories about monsters, growing up in an orphanage, performing in circuses, fighting in wars, living in the wilderness, and crossing deserts on camels. Jacob thinks the weird stories about the orphanage are the best.
According to Grandpa, it was the most unusual place run by a “wise old bird” by the name of Miss Peregrine. The children were very peculiar. One girl could levitate off the ground and another could hold fire in her hand. One boy was invisible, and bees lived inside another! Jacob believed the stories until he got too old for fairy tales, and he could tell it hurt his Grandpa when he no longer believed the elaborate yarns.
When Jacob is sixteen, Grandfather Abraham is murdered under strangely sinister circumstances. Hoping for clues, Jacob opens his Grandfather’s old trunk and finds old photographs and letters that prove some of Grandpa’s stories were true! Determined to disentangle the facts from the fiction, Jacob tricks his father into traveling to Europe to search for the orphanage. Finally, in a Welsh village, they find the house, now in ruins. Where did all the peculiar inhabitants go?
Then Jacob meets Emma, a gorgeous girl who can control fire. She talks about monstrous hollowgasts and time loops. What Jacob doesn’t realize is that he is about to begin his own amazing—and very peculiar—journey!
about the author
Ransom Riggs (That is really his name!) was born on a 200-year-old farm in Maryland. At five, he decided he definitely was going to be a farmer because then he could drive tractors. His mom promptly moved him far away to Florida where he attended the Pine View School for the Gifted. Since there was not a single tractor anywhere nearby, he was forced to make his own fun. Thankfully, he grew up writing and making silly videos with his buddies.
He knew he wanted to make movies AND write books someday…but how? Being able to attend the University of Virginia’s Young Writer’s Workshop during three summers in high school proved to him he could definitely be a writer. After studying English at Kenyon College, he attended film school at the University of Southern California.
So now he writes books and makes movies! Ransom has already done several short films and book trailers. He also writes screenplays and creates video blogs. He says more movie ideas are clanking around in his brain!
His first book was a nonfiction one about Sherlock Holmes. His first fiction book was Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, which became a best-seller. He was inspired to write Mrs. P’s story by a bunch of old photos he found with interesting writing on the backs. With Mrs. P’s book such a success, Ransom decided to share his old photos in a coffee-table book.
Ransom is excited that Tim Burton is turning the original book into a film. The second Mrs. P book, Hollow City, picks up right where the first book ends and it answers nearly all the first book’s questions. It has many more photos, including some favorite ones he couldn’t work into Mrs. P’s original story. The third book in the series is due out in late 2015, and there might be a fourth. Ransom is fairly certain there are a lot more novels clanking around half-formed in his brain. It must be a fairly crowded up there!
Sources:
Author website
Author interview : YALSA : The Hub
Also by Ransom Riggs:
Hollow City (Miss Peregrine’s Children, Book 2). Quirk Books. 2014.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine’s Children, Book 1). Quirk Books. 2011.
about the illustrator
Cassandra Jean comes from an artistic family: her mother writes, her father paints, her grandparents were seamstresses, photographers, writers, and art teachers. They always encouraged Cassandra’s creative endeavors, so it isn’t surprising she always knew she would do something artistic with her life (except in sixth grade, when she wanted to be a veterinarian).
Cassandra majored in illustration at the Ringling College of Art and Design, graduating in 2009. Working as a freelance illustrator and comic artist, she likes to work in several different genres and on several different projects at once. She says it keeps her from falling into a rut!
Her illustrations appear in the novels Beautiful Creatures, The Lynburn Legacy, Shades of London, The Raven Boys, and City of Heavenly Fire. Her comics include Land of Lions, Black-Eyed Susan, Pass The Rubicon, and the Shadowhunters Chronicles. She is especially known for her manga work.
Determined to keep her illustrations simple and clean, Cassandra does all her art work digitally. Besides novels, graphic novels, and comics, Cassandra also does fanart, tattoo designs, and illustrations for tarot decks, t-shirts, stickers, greeting cards and much more.
And what does she do in her spare time? DRAW! Yes, that is her hobby, too. That and reading, of course!
Sources:
Illustrator’s art on Tumblr
Illustrator interview : What a Nerd Girl Says
Illustrator website
Illustrator interview : Whohub
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