Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

I initially did not notice that the girl
on the cover of the book was floating in midair.

By the title alone, one might expect the book to be an... unusual sort of book. Written by Ransom Riggs, the novel covers the formative years of Jacob Portman and his relationship with his grandfather, Abraham Portman. Born into a comparatively wealthy family, Jacob was fostered by his grandfather's stories in his youth only to disregard them in his teenage years as "fairy stories." One evening, his grandfather calls him hysterical about the monsters he had spoken to Jacob of years before. What follows is Jacob's search for the truth about his grandfather and his grandfather's stories.

The plot itself is not what I found most fascinating about the book... It was the story intricately woven between the black-and-white photos enclosed in the book. Riggs used strangers photos to highlight the mysterious and strange children described in the novel. The photos were taken from various collections, making them all the more valuable in the detailing of an interesting story.

I often wonder about old photographs and what stories they hold, portraits in particular.

Source

Who is this girl? How old is she? Why is this photograph being taken? Is it a special occasion? Is she unhappy? Is she serene? What is she looking at?

All the questions and more stem from one simple picture. It takes a certain kind of storyteller to be able to weave a story out of several random photographs - not to mention an intriguing one.