There are some children who go about life to be what their society considers normal for them, and then there are some who grow up to be, dare I say, peculiar. For Jacob, he has been hearing about some of these peculiar children for most of his life.

When he was little his grandfather would tell him stories about an invisible boy, a strong girl, and a boy with bees living inside of him, but as Jacob grew up he stopped believing.

After his grandfather dies, under mysterious circumstances, Jacob finds himself setting off on a journey to find the abandoned home of these peculiar children and their Headmistress Miss Peregrine. The deeper Jacob goes the more he discovers that these children may have been kept there for the world’s protection, and somehow still alive.

Even though “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” started off at a snail’s pace, it was a very gripping book. Ransom Riggs used symbolic word choice, fantasy, mystery, and pictures to bring together a story that you can’t help but finish.

Now when I said that it was a slow beginning, I mean that the first half of the book is so slow I almost gave up reading. But like Jacob you want to know what happened to the peculiar children that you solider on.

Once the book starts picking up there is no going back. The mystery begins to grow more intense and the fantasy aspect sucks you in. It’s a great book and, for a young adult novel, a bit on the peculiar side.

As for Tim Burton’s take on the book, I felt that for a book-to-movie adaptation, this was a fairly average film. For the newest Tim Burton movie, it was fantastic. Who better than this visionary director to take a cast of strange children and bring them to life? Tim Burton has the ability to take the playful and fun, and darken it up with something like monsters and a plate of eyeballs.

On top of having a spectacular director, the adult characters that play roles both big and small in this film were truly all star. Dame Judy Dench play a funny, and a little shaken, peculiar as appose to her normal serious roles of power, Samuel L. Jackson makes a funny and terrifying monster, and the biggest role was Eva Green as the wonderful Miss Alma Peregrine who is warm, sharp, and a serious badass.

However, this is not a book-to-movie adaption in my mind. More like a movie based on a book. Some of the core and supporting characters have been changed and the plot is similar to the original written by Riggs but it’s definitely got that vibe only Burton can deliver.