5.08 Free Choice Blog

For this lesson, I read chapter 6 of "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children". The very first chapter was scary and I thought that's how the rest of the book would be, but chapter 6 was like something out of a fantasy book. It reminded me a bit of the Harry Potter series.

In this chapter, Jacob was confronted by the little girl at knife-point and interrogated. The girl, Emma, and her invisible companion, Millard, took Jacob back to the orphanage to see the headmistress. Miss Peregrine ordered the children to release him and made it clear that she had been expecting him. Jacob gets to meet all of the little children there who call themselves the "peculiars" because of their special talents and deformities. He discovers that children and teens (even though they're all actually 70-100 years old) live there with Miss Peregrine in September 3rd, 1940. They live in a loop created by Miss Peregrine meaning the same day replays over and over again but not the things they do. Everyone keeps their knowledge of the day before (so it doesn't render their learning or experience), they never age physically so they're incredibly smart, and still get to live a normal life under the teachings of the headmistress. September 3rd is when the bomb hits the orphanage and supposedly kills the children but Miss Peregrine made the loop seconds before the bomb hit; right when its about to hit, everything goes back to the night of September 2nd. In real life the house is in ruins, but in their loop, everything is still perfect (aside from the war noises at night).

The chapter ends with Jacob going back home that night after spending the day with the peculiar children and getting into an argument with his dad. His dad did have a point; staying in the ruins of your grandfather's old home all day isn't healthy. But, he doesn't know the entire story and he will never be able to understand. This chapter ends with Jacob contemplating his future. He's thinking about running away and living with the peculiars forever in 1940.

This chapter does have one cause and effect and that is the cairn through which you have to enter and exit to get into Miss Peregrine's loop, the only control in the story. There are compare and contrasts throughout the chapter when Jacob explores the house and the children. I was amazed by the end of the chapter; it was truly magical. Now if only the peculiars had wifi and video games. Then, I would want to live there too.

4.08 Free Choice Blog

For this lesson, I read chapter 5 of "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children". In this chapter, Jacob, unwilling to let the secrets go, chooses to explore the remains of the orphanage. His feelings in this chapter come out of nowhere and it's hard to tell what he's going to do next. At the site of the remains, Jacob discovers a chest of pictures of the same kids his grandfather showed him as a kid. There's just one difference; these pictures didn't look fake which meant they were real and absolutely terrifying.

This chapter is where Jacob starts to realize that what he's really looking into isn't something he'd like to know. He starts to believe the house is haunted and just as he comes to that conclusion, the kids come home. The same kids who were killed in that orphanage years ago came home and found Jacob there, thinking he was his grandfather Abe. When they realized he wasn't Abe, they ran. He followed a girl in particular into a sort of crawling space in the forest until he lost her at the end. Jacob came to the conclusion that there was never a girl or kids and that he was more insane than he thought. He stuck with this as he walked back to the pub to find his dad but no one knew who he was and his dad wasn't in sight. The end of this chapter reveals that Jacob is now in September 3rd, 1940; this is the exact day that the orphanage was blown up by army planes.

In conclusion, the chapter was thrilling and picked the story back up quickly. I believe the author intended to slow the story down in chapters 2 to 4 to keep the reader's expectations low for chapter 5. Once again, I spotted many compare and contrasts but there was still no cause and effect (unless you go into the itty bitty details). I was surprised at this chapter because I didn't expect something so strange to happen.