Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: Director's Cut!

David Levithan on EVERY DAY

Every Day by David Levithan

“Every day I am someone else. I am myself-I know I am myself-but I am also someone else.”

When trying to write a review for this book, I wasn’t sure how to begin. This book blurs the lines between who we are as a body and who we are as a soul. A is the main character of the book. He is only A, a name he gave himself, to remind himself that he is someone. A soul, a spirit, a person who is passed around from body to body each day, a never ending cycle of being someone that is not him, and until now he has been alone. Then he meets Rhiannon, Justin’s girlfriend, and for one day he is able to love and laugh and be himself. That is when his world changes forever. Rhiannon is the first person to learn his secret, the first person he really loves. Through Rhiannon he is able to truly show who he is.

I found myself drawn to A, wanting this torture to end for him, and I was a little angry at Levithan for putting him through this unhappy life in a situation that may never end. I found myself, as a mom, sad that A never had parents to love him or hug him, but I guess this is a life other people have had, his is just a little stranger.

Through his book, David Levithan makes us question what love really is. Is it a gender, a physical attraction, or is it with heart that we really love someone? He makes us question who we are. Are we merely a body; are we merely a mind; are we both? Beautifully and seamlessly written, Every Day is a book that makes us think long after we put it down, and Levithan I am really hoping for a sequel. 

Levithan is the author of many amazing books including Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist  and Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Okay, can I just start off by saying that Ransom Riggs is probably one of the most awesome names ever created. You know a book will be good when the author’s name is something cool like Ransom Riggs. As a fellow double consonant named person I understand how important your career choice is, and I highly failed when I became a librarian as opposed to becoming something more fitting for a double consonanted person like a news reporter or an author, as Ransom Riggs has done. Author names aside, if I were to judge a book by its cover (come on you know you do it too), I would read this book cover to cover in a matter of days, which is funny, because I did. Just look at that cover, how could you not want to read a book by Ransom Riggs with a picture of a girl levitating on the front cover.

To the actual book itself, even if you do not like to read, Mrs. Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a great book because it is peppered throughout by black and white, somewhat disturbing images that Ransom Rigg’s actually used from collectors. The fact that these pictures are real makes the pictures even more disturbing. The story to go along with those pictures doesn’t disappoint. Jacob is the main character, who leads an extremely ordinary life until something extraordinary happens to him (yeah, it’s cliché I know, but it’s true). Jacob has listened to the stories from his grandfather’s childhood all of his life, stories that include a girl who floats, a boy who is invisible, and an old smoking bird that watches over all of the peculiar children. As Jacob gets older, he begins to see the ridiculous fantasies that his grandfather has told him throughout the years as just that, fantasies. However, once Jacob’s grandfather dies and Jacob is put to the edge of insanity, he learns that maybe the stories his grandfather told were actually not that fantastic; maybe those stories were true, and the children and the bird do exist somewhere. And, maybe it is up to Jacob to save them all.

The book is quirky and suspenseful, and I’m not going to lie, it may have made me a little scared of the dark, especially when I am still getting up with a ten week old every three or four hours. Mrs. Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is just as amazing and entertaining as Ransom Rigg’s name, and even sleepless nights, an unclean house, and three children couldn’t stop me from reading this book.