For this lesson, I read the prologue and chapter 1 of "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" by Ransom Riggs. The main character is Jacob Portman who became deluded by his grandfather's "fairy stories" (tall tales) about his childhood in an orphanage. His grandfather believed in monsters who were out to get him and childhood friends who had super powers and the magic of the island he lived on; he was thrilled to share his happiest memories with his small and gullible grandson. Jacob eventually grew up to realize that he'd been lied to but discovered his grandfather's real past: his life was a horror story ever since escaping World War II. Jacob is 15 now and his grandfather is suffering from dimentia. His family knows this and is deciding whether to put him in a nursing home or not. Jacob is working at one of his family's drug stores when he gets an "apocalyptic" call from his grandfather about the monsters finally finding him. He and his friend drive over to his grandfather's house to find it looking ransacked and his grandfather laying facedown in the woods, half-dead. The chapter ends with his grandfather dying and Jacob feeling a presence nearby as he catches a glimpse of one of the monsters described in his grandfather's horror stories.
The end of this chapter was terrifying for me. This story started out innocent, but the author got his point across when he ended the first chapter like this; this is going to be a horror fiction to remember. If I had to create notes to help me remember the most important parts, I would use an outline to organize ideas in each chapter. Thought bubbles could have been about approach but so far there are too many connections between his grandfather and the monsters and super-friends. Any other style of notes would be irrelevant for this novel.
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