Map of Days By Ransom Riggs

A Map of Days is the fourth novel in the Peculiars series by Ransom Riggs. The novel opens with a prologue that sees Jacob Portman who has returned home to America after a "vacation" in Wales, in the process of being escorted by his two uncles to an asylum. His parents, who are also accompanying him, believe he has lost his mind.

Fortunately for Jacob, this is interrupted by the sudden appearance of Miss Peregrine and her peculiar wards, terrifying Jacob's parents and his uncles to the point that they crash the car into the garage doors. In an attempt to calm everyone, Bronwyn, used a copious amount of Mother Dust putting them into a "velvety sleep", long enough so that they likely wouldn't awaken until the following day.

This gives Jacob time to reunite with his peculiar friends whom he hasn't seen for the past six weeks.  With Miss Peregrine, are Bronwyn, Enoch, Olive,the invisible Millard, Hugh, Horace, Claire and Emma whom Jacob has a crush on,  While his parents and uncles sleep, Jacob and his friends enjoy pizza and talk. He learns they have travelled via the Panloopticon, exploring loops that were deemed safe by the ymbrynes. They travelled to many places including Mongolia and the Atlas Mountains of North Africa and they also spent time Sharon, the boatman from Devil's Acre.

While the peculiars are only interested in resting, Miss Peregrine tells them that they must learn how to navigate the world of normals and so she assigns Jacob the task of helping them. That night Jacob wonders how he will explain his situation to his parents. He has returned to his home in Englewood, a small community on Needle Key, a barrier island in Florida, hoping to finish his schooling. But Jacob's experiences in the peculiar world have changed him. Jacob wants his parents in his life but he also wants to be a part of both the normal and peculiar world.

Leaving Hugh behind to alert them when his parents and uncles wake up, Jacob takes Miss Peregrine and the peculiars to the beach. At the beach, following a discussion with Miss Peregrine, Jacob decides that he'd like to tell his parent the truth about what has happened, rather than having Miss Peregrine wipe their minds. When they get the call from Hugh, Jacob returns home and attempts to tell his parents the truth. His mother becomes hysterical and passes out while his father becomes angry. Jacob's father then tells him the story of  how his father took him on one of his trips with a mysterious man named "H" and relates how they were attacked in North Florida or Georgia. Jacob's father witnessed the attack and fled in terror, but has only partial memory of the attack as his memory was partially wiped.

Miss Peregrine attempts to help but Jacob's father is so upset that he insists that she wipe his memory completely. To help Jacob who is deeply upset at his parents' reaction, Miss Peregrine has him take some of the peculiars shopping for modern clothes. However, Jacob inadvertently drives to his late grandfather's subdivision. Determined to pay their respects to the memory of Jacob's grandfather Abe who was killed by a hollowgast, Emma and Olive insist on visiting his abandoned home. They find the home on Morningbird Lane in a state of disrepair and decide to clean the home. In the process discover a secret room beneath Abe's study that can be accessed through a metal door in the floor. Beneath is a bunker with four cots and supplies to last several weeks. Jacob also discovers a binder titled Operations which reveals that his grandfather was not only a hollowgast hunter but was rescuing peculiar children, a job normally assigned to the ymbrynes. The log book only leads to more questions. Why were the American ymbrynes not saving peculiar children? "...Was there still a group of hollow-hunters out there somewhere, fighting monsters and rescuing peculiars? If so, I wanted very much to find them. I wanted to be part of it, to use my gift to carry out my grandfather's work here in America. After all, maybe that's what he wanted!"

Jacob sets out to find the mysterious "H", leading him on a quest that not only places him and the other peculiars in grave danger but also challenges his relationship with Emma and the other peculiars.

Discussion

 In A Map of Days, Ransom Riggs continues the story of Jacob Portman, hollowgast hunter extraordinaire. Now back home in Needle Key, Florida, Jacob must deal with his parents who believe he is insane, his fractured relationship with the normal world, and his future as a peculiar.

The inability of his parents to accept what he is telling them and the sudden appearance of Miss Peregrine and his peculiar friends forces Jacob to confront his parents and to have Miss Peregrine wipe their memories - a convenient plot device that Riggs employs to remove them from the story. With school set to begin in a week's time, the appearance of Miss Peregrine and his peculiar friends who are now free from their loop and able to travel anywhere they want causes Jacob to wonder how he will return to normal life. "Could I really imagine sitting through interminable classes and lunch periods and mandatory assemblies every day...."  Jacob questions what he wants for his life. "I had no interest in a normal career. In settling down with someone who didn't understand who I was, or in having kids from whom I had to keep half my life a secret, like my grandfather had." 

In addition his peculiar friends, now freed from the constraints of the loops, begin to rebel against Miss Peregrine's restrictive care. Jacob notices that "The dynamic between the kids and Miss Peregrine had shifted a bit. They seemed more like teenagers now -- real ones, beginning to chafe against her authority."  

Against this backdrop, along with the discovery that his grandfather was saving peculiar children in addition to hunting down hollowgasts, Jacob decides that he wants to carry on Abe's work. To that end he seeks out the mysterious "H" who sends him on a mission that ultimately almost gets Jacob killed and sends waves of discord through the peculiar world. However, Jacob remains undeterred in his determination to continue what he views as his mission to save peculiar children.

A Map of Days is an enjoyable fourth book in the Peculiars series with a storyline that's a bit easier to follow than the confusing third installment, The Library of Souls. Story line does become somewhat muddied near the end of the novel, when Jacob and the peculiars accompanying him are trapped by a gang of peculiars set in 1930's New York.

This novel sets the stage though, for a fifth book that will likely continue the adventures of Jacob and the "uncontacted peculiar" named Noor whom he rescues against the wishes of Miss Peregrine and with the help of "H" who dies in the attempt. There's also some unfinished business between Jacob and Emma who have grown apart in this novel. Their blossoming romance at the beginning of the novel is dampened when it becomes apparent that Emma has not come to terms with the loss of Abe and his living his life mostly without her. Emma had spent decades dreaming about life with Abe that being in his time, in his home and learning about him seemed to have placed his ghost between them.

As with the other novels in the series, the book contains old photographs representing characters Jacob meets in his adventures as well as some of the clues Jacob receives to help him  However, in A Map of Days, these photographs seem secondary to the story and almost unnecessary, although they do add an element of intrigue.

Book Details:

A Map of Days by Ransom Riggs
New York: Dutton Books     2018
480 pp.

Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs

Library of Souls begins where the previous novel, Hollow City left off,  with Jacob Portman, Emma Bloom and the talking dog (yes that's right!) Addison MacHenry trapped by a hollowgast. However, Jacob has been able to neutralize the hollowgast with his newly discovered ability to control and speak to hollowgasts. He, Emma and Addison are able to escape out of the tunnel and into the subway station, hoping to track their fellow peculiars who have been captured by the wights. They decide to leave the station but discover a severely injured man in the train tunnel. That man is Sergei who tells Jacob he has the gift of speaking in the monster's tongue. Their plan to leave the station is thwarted by the appearance of two wights dressed as ambulance drivers. Attacked by the wights and the hollowgast, once again Jacob is able to control the hollowgast and make it kill one of the wights.

Escaping on a train, the three peculiars are followed by the hollowgast who latches onto the train. When they pull into the next station, Addison warns them that there are wights waiting for them. One of the wights boards the car behind the peculiars and he soon discovers them. Off the train, they are pursued by the wight and the hollowgast, through a crowd attending a ComicCon. Addison is certain the peculiars have passed this way. The wight is called off and Jacob, Emma and Addison work to find loop entrance. They discover that they are back in present day London. Addison, following the peculiars trail, leads them to a rotting, rat-infested jetty and indicates that they must take a boat to follow the scent. At the jetty they meet a creepy man named Sharon. They decide that it is likely their friends and the ymbrynes have been taken to the loop called Devil's Acre, a lawless slum. They negotiate passage to Devil's Acre with Sharon. They enter the loop and encounter a place resembling hell. "The foundations of every house were decomposing into mush. Crazy wooden footbridges, some no wider than a board, crisscrossed the canal like a cat's cradle, and its stinking banks were heaped with trash and crawling with spectral forms at work sifting through it. The only colors were shades of black, yellow, and green, the flag of filth and decay, but black most of all. Black stained every surface, smeared every face, and striped the air in columns that rose from chimneys all around us..."

Sharon guides his boat along the river called Fever Ditch and begins to look for a place to land. However, before he can accomplish this, they encounter ditch pirates who are curious about Sharon's now hidden cargo of the peculiars. Things get further complicated with the arrival of the hollowgast, which latches onto the bottom of Sharon's boat. In the struggle with the pirates, Jacob manages to order the hollowgast to sink the pirates boat. However, unable to get the hollowgast to release their boat, Jacob has Emma burn one of the tongues, causing the hollowgast to crash into a bridge.

Sharon lands the peculiars in Devil's Acre but discovers his boat is badly damaged. While he goes in search of someone to repair it, the peculiars are invited by a woman named Lorraine to visit her house of curiosities. Jacob, Emma and Addison discover that she has hundreds of peculiars imprisoned and drugged in the house. Determined to set them free, Emma confronts Lorraine who tells her that the wights often come and take her peculiars and return them damaged. She tells Emma that the wights bring in trucks of peculiars and that one just recently came through. Believing this to be their friends, Emma learns that the trucks go over a bridge at the end of Smoking Street.

Jacob, Emma and Addison decide to travel to Smoking Street and the wight's bridge. Smoke Street turns out to be a desolate area of Devil's Acre. The land is charred black and "Sulfurous smoke rose from deep cracks that fissured the pavement. Fire-stripped trees loomed like scarecrows over the ruins." The wight's bridge leads to their fortress, a high white tower. Crossing the bridge proves to be not only dangerous but deadly as Jacob, Emma and Addison are attacked by a hollowgast hidden in the bridge. This leads to a deadly fight in which all are injured but saved by Jacob's ability to control the hollowgast.

After their fight with the hollowgast, Emma and Jacob are attacked by the crazed people of Devil's Acre and just barely rescued by Sharon. Addison manages to cross the bridge hidden beneath a wights truck. They are taken to the house of Myron Bentham where they are healed by Mother Dust. Myron reveals that he knew Jacob's grandfather and that the Siberia Room they discovered in the house is a time-loop to Siberia. He also tells them that the house is a peculiarium where he collects and preserves peculiar artifacts. The house itself is a machine which he calls the Panloopticon which he created.

Bentham tells Jacob and Emma that his house is a collection of entrances to loops leading to areas where peculiars live. Bentham and his brother, Caul/Jack collected and created them with the intent to link all the peculiars together so as to organize them.

Legend states that when peculiars died they went to a special loop called Abaton that led to a repository holding their souls - a library of souls. The souls could be borrowed but when a peculiar died the soul had to be returned. Someone began breaking into the library and stealing the most powerful souls to use for evil purposes. The library guardians killed this person and recovered the stolen souls. This led to battles for control of Abaton and library of souls. The King of Abaton was killed during the war, ending the fighting, but the loop to the library had vanished. This led Perplexus Anomalous to hunt for the loop, creating many detailed maps as he did so. Bentham's brother soon forgot their goal of mapping became obsessed with discovering the lost loop to the library of souls. Bentham reveals is sister is Alma Peregrine. This revelation shocks Jacob and Emma who were told by Miss Peregrine that her brothers had become hollowgasts and then wights. In order to stop Caul from trying to gain control of the Panloopticon and to stop him from destroying the ymbrynes, Bentham made the hollowgasts, Bentham turned Caul into a hollowgast. He tricked Caul and his supporters into entering a loop that could be collapsed and closed. However, the hollowgasts escaped the collapsed loop to feed on peculiars, normals and animals. The peculiars stayed in their loops for safety. Eventually Caul returned to Bentham's house. "He'd consumed enough peculiars to fill his hollow soul and turn himself into something that resembled my brother...A wight is to the peculiar he once was as a thing copied many times is to its original. Detail is lost, and color..."

Jack continued to be obsessed about locating Abaton. He needed Bentham's machine and he also needed to capture all the ymbrynes because they were the ones who locked the loop before it was lost. Jack has spent years tracking and capturing all the ymbrynes, including Miss Peregrine. Bentham tells Jacob and Emma that Jack does not know that even if he finds Abaton and the Library of Souls he will not be able to simply see and touch the jars containing the souls. Bentham tells them "We share a common goal...To destroy my brother and his kind, and to save my sister and hers." Can Bentham, Jacob and Emma stop Jack from finding Abalon and the Library of Souls and save their fellow peculiars?

Discussion

Library of Souls is the satisfying finale to the Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series, tying up all the loose ends. While the entire series is fascinating and very original, the final novel was at times, tedious and drawn out partly because of the excessive details and descriptions throughout the story. This slowed down the middle of the novel, as Riggs sets up the grand finale - Jacob and Emma must save the thousands of peculiars who have been enslaved, protect the Library of Souls and destroy the evil wights bent on stealing the powers of those peculiars stored in the library.

Although Riggs used photographs throughout this series to enhance his story, their inclusion was probably least effective in this novel - although still intriguing. The basic storyline is fleshed out with detailed descriptions of settings and characters. These descriptions are particularly well written, giving the reader a strong sense of the Victorian-era slum that Devil's Acre is, and the hollowed sacredness of the Library of Souls.

The strength of this novel is its unusual characters and their strange abilities and Riggs portrayal of Jacob Portman's transformation into a heroic character.

Although the conclusion to Library of Souls was exciting, it seemed at times as though it was written with a screen adaptation in mind. Riggs ties up all the loose ends and realistically has Jacob's parents believing their son is mentally ill. The resolution to this problem and to Jacob and Emma's dilemma feels somewhat contrived, but in a world of unbelievable characters and situations, seems quite reasonable.

The first novel, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children will be brought to the big screen in late 2016. I can think of no better director than Tim Burton to do this. Jacob and Emma will be portrayed by Asa Butterfield and Ella Purnell.

Book Details:

Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs
Philadelphia: Quirk Books          2015
458 pp.

Hollow City by Ransom Riggs

Jacob Portman along with a motley crew of peculiars, children with special abilities, have left the island of Cairnholm, to seek safety on the mainland. Jacob is also a peculiar, being able to sense hollows or hollowgast which are monsters who are hunting the peculiars. Scattered among three lifeboats the peculiars include Emma Bloom who can make fire with her hands, Millard Nullings the invisible boy, Olive Abroholos Elephanta who is lighter than air, Bronwyn Bruntley an unusually strong girl, Horace Somnusson who has premonitory visions, Enoch O'Connor able to animate the dead, Hugh Apiston the boy with bees in his stomach, Claire Densmore the girl with two mouths and Fiona Frauenfeld who can make plants grows. Accompanying them is Alma LeFay Peregrine, a ymbryne or time manipulator and shapeshifter. Miss Peregrine is the protector of the peculiars but she has been injured and is in bird form. She can create time loops and manipulate time.

Out on the sea, the children suffer through a violent gale that causes them to lose most of their food and belongings and to land on an unknown shore. The children are being pursued by the wights in a submarine and they must be off the water by nightfall. Wights are hollowgasts who have matured after eating a sufficient number of peculiar souls. They can assume human form and can exist among humans.

On the island the children find a brief reprieve until the wights land and begin tracking them at nightfall. Mysteriously the children manage to avoid them and in the morning seek a way out of the forest. The night before the children read a story from the Tales of the Peculiar about a giant named Cuthbert who is turned to stone in the middle of a lake. Unbelievably they discover a lake with a rock formation that looks like a giant's head. Emma decides to wade out to the rock and climbs into the mouth of the formation, discovering a new time loop.

The new time loop turns out to be exceedingly dangerous however, when they encounter a hollowgast bent on eating them. After destroying it, the peculiars meet Miss Wren's menagerie which includes a talking bulldog who smokes a pipe and various other odd creatures.  The bulldog, Addison MacHenry, was brought to this loop by another ymbryne named Miss Wren who they learn has left for London to help her ymbryne sisters.  Miss Wren is the only remaining uncaptured ymbryne. Her spies, a flock of peculiar pigeons, have told her that the ymbrynes have been captured and are being held in punishment loops which were originally designed to hold wights. Now the wights and their hollows are guarding these loops.  With all of the ymbrynes captured, there will be no one to maintain the time loops and they will collapse.

The peculiars decide to reveal Miss Peregrine to Addison and explain to him that she is unable to revert back to human form.  Addison is certain Miss Peregrine has been poisoned so that she cannot change back. He tells the peculiars that they must find another ymbryne to help her change. The more time Miss Peregrine spends as a a bird, the less likely she will be able to return to human form. Addison tells Emma and Jacob that she has at most three more days before returning to human form will become impossible.

The Peculiars decide they must go to London to find Miss Wren and have her heal Miss Peregrine.Addison tries to dissuade them, telling them the loops are guarded by hollows. However, Emma and Jacob realize this is the only way they can save Miss Peregrine.

They return to the 1940 loop and take a road to a town named Coal.  However, the wights have resumed their pursuit of the children. When they encounter a gypsy caravan on the road, the peculiars take shelter among them. Upon arriving in Coal, the peculiars manage to purchase train tickets for London, but are intercepted by the wights who capture them. Hugh and his bees save the day and they reconnect with the train, arriving in London.

In 1940 London, turmoil reigns as the city is being bombed by the Germans. The peculiars now face a race against time to find help for their beloved Miss Peregrine. They must first locate Miss Wren's pigeons, who they hope will lead them to the ymbryne herself. But in devastated London, hunted by hollows, this proves to be more difficult than they ever imagined. Jacob, Emma and their fellow peculiars must deal with new peculiars, a deceit that destroys all their hope and a murderous plot that seeks to destroy peculiardom once and for all.

Hollow City is a strange story told in a unique way with a collection of photographs that reinforce the storyline. The strength of Rigg's second novel is that it further develops the main characters we met in the first novel, expanding on their peculiarities while revealing more about the world of the peculiars. It appears that Jacob's peculiar ability to detect hollows is either evolving or he is discovering more about what he is capable of. This ability provides a unique twist near the end of the novel just when it seems that all is lost. Jacob grows in confidence in his ability not only to detect and destroy hollowgast but also discovers he can manipulate them.

The other peculiar characters are presented in more detail through their interactions with the narrator, Jacob. Emma is a confident, caring young woman who is concerned for all the children and stands up to Enoch, who despite his sarcasm, can be insensitive. Horace struggles with his fear of the unknown while Hugh often feels neglected and useless.

Emma and Jacob's relationship deepens in this second novel, as their adventures together serve to draw them into falling in love. However Jacob's feelings for Emma are a source of conflict for him because he wants to stay with Emma in her time loop and yet he longs for a normal life back with his family in his own time. Emma too is conflicted. While she loves Jacob she knows he cannot stay with her. She wants Jacob to have a proper life and not one like what she has experienced for the past seventy years. She tells him that she is an old woman hiding in the body of a young girl and that she and the others would never choose the life they have over the life Jacob has a chance to live back in his own time.

Hollow City tends to drag somewhat through the middle, with most of the action happening in the last few chapters. Ransom Riggs manages to keep the reader engaged however through the clever use of strange photographs. The cliffhanger ending will leave readers wondering how Ransom Riggs will wrap up his story in the third novel. This novel is definitely not to be missed by fans of Miss Peregrine and Ransom Riggs!

You can enjoy the very original book trailer:



Book Details:
Hollow City by Ransom Riggs
Philadelphia: Quirk Books      2014
396 pp.

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

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.

The prologue to Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children provides the reader with the background information on Jacob and his family. Jacob's grandfather was the only one of his family to escape Poland before the Second World War engulfed Europe. He was sent to a children's home on a remote island off the coast of Wales. This home was very different though according to Jacob's grandfather because there resided at the home many children with unusual abilities. Some had the ability to fly, others to lift heavy objects and still others the ability to use fire. Besides his stories of the children, grandpa also told stories about monsters. This was the reason why he had to leave his home in Poland. The home in Wales was a special place designed to keep these special children safe from the monsters. The sun always shone, no one got sick and they were watched over by a "wise old bird".

Although these stories captivated Jacob when he was younger, as he grew older, he came to view them as an allegory for his grandfather's war experiences. What he lived through was so horrifying that he made up these stories so as to be able to tell his grandchildren. But then one night everything changes in a way Jacob could never have imagined.

One night Jacob receives a frantic call from his grandpa. He sounds disoriented and panic stricken. When Jacob rushes to his grandpa's home he discovers him fatally wounded. Sensing something in the woods nearby, Jacob sees a horrible sight that both shocks and terrifies him. After months of trying to cope with what happened and with what his grandpa has told him about his past, Jacob decides he must visit the island where his father spent his childhood. With only his grandpa's last words as clues, Jacob begins his search to understand his grandfather and what he has told him.

"Find the bird. In the loop. On the other side of the old man's grave. September third, 1940."

Jacob and his father decide to visit Cairholm Island, Cymru, where his father grew up, the following summer. Upon his arrival on Cairholm, they rent a room at the tavern and Jacob soon locates the old children's home, now a decaying, crumbling ruin of a house. He soon learns however that all is not as it seems and that his father's stories had more truth in them than he could ever have imagined.

Discussion

Ransom Rigg's debut novel, Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children is a brilliant and original story about a group of unusual children and their struggle to survive. It is a mixture of science fiction fantasy and mystery that captivates with its unusual format. The vintage photographs placed throughout add a visual component to the novel that is unique and helps with the storytelling. The black and white photographs, mostly of Victorian age, help the reader to form a connection to some of the "peculiar" children.

The story is told by Jacob with a touch of wit. Riggs has done a wonderful job portraying Jacob as a caring, courageous young man who deals with the strangeness and reality of his unique situation with great maturity. He also seems to easily accept each of the peculiars, despite their strangeness. Each character brings a new aspect to the storyline.

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children with its mixture of Victorian horror, suspense and fantasy is sure to appeal to young adult readers. Look for a sequel in the near future.

Book Details:

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs 2011
Philadelphia: Quirk Books
352pp.