3.07 Free Choice Blog

For this lesson, I read chapters 2-4 of "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children". These chapters are about what happens to Jacob after his grandfather's death. His grandfather and he were like father and son. They had a close relationship so Jacob was devastated as well as scarred from what happened. On top of all of this, nobody believed his stories about the creature who killed his grandfather. The police made fun of him and his parents took him to a shrink, thinking he went insane. His nightmares and belief that the monster was real did not help him in therapy; he was diagnosed with "acute stress reaction".

His therapist did encourage him to find closure and try to figure out what his grandfathers last words meant, "find the bird with the pipe. Emerson". The vagueness of the message did not help them. Jacob tries everything to figure it out and he was just about to give up when he found a note in his grandfather's copy of a Ralph Waldo Emerson book. In the note was a letter from Mrs. Peregrine, the lady in charge of the orphanage where his grandfather grew up, asking how his grandfather was doing and telling him someone named "E" misses him dearly. The letter was a clue and a glimpse of hope, but it was also dated 15 years ago. The orphanage was also on a small island off the coast of Wales, making it a slim chance for him to get his parents to let him visit. But somehow his therapist managed to help convince his parents to let him go with his dad, who needed pictures of exotic birds for his new book anyway.

The last chapter I read, chapter 4, takes place on the island of Cairnholm where the orphanage is. Jacob and his dad arrive and find that the island is uncomfortable with basic and kind of medieval living conditions. One phone on the entire island, the only bed and breakfast is on the second story of a bar, the island's electricity goes off every night at 10pm: seems luxurious huh? Jacob and his dad try to make the best of it anyway so they can get on with what they came there for and be done with it in 3 weeks. While his father goes out to beaches to take pictures of birds (and their feces), Jacob travels around the island to find information about his grandfather. After many people wondering if he was insane, he finally got directions to the orphanage only to find it empty and in terrible condition. When asking for further information, everyone said it had been bombed during World War II and that the only survivor was his grandfather. The chapter ends with speculation from Jacob; how did he not know the orphanage didn't exist anymore? His grandfather made him think it was still there and the letter was dated only 15 years ago.

The book is great so far; the mystery and sense of fear makes me excited to read what happens next. The book had compare and contrast organization to show the differences between certain things. For instance: the difference between the place they were staying in compared to where his family would usually vacation since they have the money or how the beer in the bar looked like tar. All I could find in these chapters were compare and contrasts. I think the author intended for this to be a mystery and horror fiction book. Usually a book would have cause and effect organization because when the character does something, it effects something else but this book doesn't. Not yet at least.