Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children movie night

When Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children movie came out, I knew nothing about the book, but Batman wanted to go see it as a special excursion. So we headed off to go see it, and we both loved it. Then he wanted to read the book, and I said, “Of course you can read the book.” I was eagerly looking forward to when Princess would be able to handle the book. Fast forward a few years and Jeff was home alone with the kids, and he decided to show the movie to the kids. I got home to indignant cries from Princess, “Mom, I don’t know why you thought I’d be scared of that movie.” Little did she know, I’d already planned for a Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children book club as a book and a movie assignment for 9th grade, and I knew she was able to handle it. But I was too late. They’d all already seen it. But, they all eagerly read the book and had fun discussing it in reverse.

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Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Follows the adventures of a bunch of “peculiar children” and their struggle to stay safe against those who would kill them for their abilities.

Actually, that’s not quite correct. The first book is a mystery. Jacob is trying to solve the mystery of who his grandfather was and if the stories he’s grown up hearing are all true. After his grandfather is murdered, Jacob retraces his past to find out who his grandfather really was and what this unusual school was.

If you’re a comic book nerd, there are some definite parallels between this series and the X-Men.

I picked up the box set, which has the first three books in it, and the movie combines bits and pieces from these books, so if you’re wanting to follow along with the movie, I recommend reading the first three books. I only assigned the first book to my kids.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children book club

I didn’t particularly find any literary guides I liked for this book. Instead, we talked about the peculiar children and their powers.

We talked about what it would be like to have some of those powers and how disturbing some of them are.

But, we did have a fun writing assignment to go with our Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children book club.

Ransom Riggs draws inspiration for his characters from old pictures he finds. So, I did a quick Google search and printed off a few unique pictures and gave the kids an assignment to create a new character to join the Peculiar Home with Miss Peregrine.

They had a blast creating their characters and writing a short story for the new character.
 

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children movie night

Batman actually asked for this movie for his birthday after watching it with me. So, I picked up the blue-ray and held onto it until the time was right to assign the book.

The kids and I had fun picking out some fun snacks for our movie night, and we all agreed with the emphasis on an Irish breakfast, we wanted to make sure and include that in our movie night snacks.

• Irish Breakfast- I made crumpets, but you could also use English muffins, then we had breakfast sausages, and scrambled eggs
• Bombs- Rice krispies treats (Rice Krispies, marshmallows, butter, and vanilla) rolled into balls with licorice whips as fuses, and melted chocolate chips to make it into a nice dark color
• Rope- straight up licorice
• Time loop- we stopped at a local donut shop and picked up a dozen donuts
• lead shoes- Nutter Butters dipped in melted chocolate
• Twins- Sour Patch kids
• Fishing boats- Apples cut into wedges
• Tentacles- gummy worms

Not super a lot of snacks, but overall a thoroughly enjoyed movie and snacks.

More book and a movie ideas for junior high and high school

• Huckleberry Finn book club
• To Kill a Mockingbird book club
• Ender’s Game book club
• Midsummer Night’s Dream book club
• Henry V “book” club

picture used under Creative Commons