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Book List: Schools for Peculiar Children

      

 

Miss Peregine’s Home for Peculiar Children hits theaters this week, and it will be interesting to see how it measures up to the book. It looks cool– click here for a link to the trailer. For me, the letters and the real photographs used, and the scrapbook-type format, were much of what made it intriguing, and I can’t imagine how that will translate to the screen. But the trailers look pretty awesome, so even if the movie doesn’t turn out to be just like the book, perhaps it will stand well on its own.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is far from the first book to be set in a school or home intended for particularly unusual children, though– some really excellent books for middle grade and teen readers exist in this category.  Here are a few you might check out.

 

Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan

Kit Gordy is attending an extremely exclusive, isolated, boarding school. Spoiler: it’s also haunted by ghosts who take possession of the students to create amazing works of art. Nothing could possibly go wrong here, right? This is a good one for tweens and middle schoolers, although, in my opinion, you don’t outgrow Lois Duncan.

 

 

The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls by Claire LeGrand

This is a disturbed fairy tale of a book. Victoria, a perfect 12 year old in every way, living in a picture-perfect community, has chosen just one friend, the very imperfect, messy, and musical Lawrence. When Lawrence disappears, Victoria goes on a search for him, uncovering some very unpleasant things. As more children disappear, and creepy creatures start invading, Victoria becomes even more determined to solve the mystery. She discovers that the orphanage across the street is actually a deeply disturbing, magically operated facility with the mission of turning all the imperfect children that have disappeared, including Lawrence, into identical, perfect children, Stepford-style. Mrs. Cavendish, the headmistress of the school, is truly diabolical, and the school itself is creepy, disquieting, and disorienting. This one is not for the faint of stomach, but people who liked Coraline  or the more nightmarish writing of Roald Dahl might very well like this. This is Gothic children’s horror at its best– highly recommended, but for no younger than age 10.

Contains: body horror, cannibalism, insect hordes, torture.

 

Matilda by Roald Dahl

Speaking of Roald Dahl, Matilda is surely every book lover’s favorite story of a peculiar child. While her school isn’t specifically for peculiar children, the people who work there certainly qualify as peculiar, especially the headmistress. You can’t help cheering for Matilda as she uses her unusual powers to defeat the sadistic Miss Trunchbull.

 

The Grounding of Group 6  by Julian F. Thompson

What’s a parent to do when a child repeatedly breaks the rules, gets thrown out of school again, or breaks that last straw? You send them to the school of last resort– Coldbrook County School– and then never worry about them again. That’s right, the school will take care of your problem child for you, in a permanent way, while the students are out on retreat in a wooded area full of sinkholes. Nothing supernatural in this book, all the horror is in the way humans treat each other.
I’d wait until high school to read this one– it’s got some harrowing moments. There’s also an implied sexual relationship between one of the students, in her late teens, and her “counselor”, who is in his twenties.

 

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

After the death of her mother, Gemma Doyle is sent from her home in India to a young ladies’ boarding school in Victorian England. Gemma has visions, and her unusual upbringing and uncanny knowledge mean a chilly reception from the other girls. Gemma learns to control the visions so she can visit magical realms. As she makes friends, she involves them in her journeys, but while the girls enjoy the power and escape they have in the realms, Gemma learns there is also a darker side. This is the first book in a trilogy: the other two books are Rebel Angels and The Sweet Far Thing. Recommended for middle school and up.


Posted on September 28, 2016 by , Reply

Book Review: Stranded by Bracken MacLeod


Stranded by Bracken MacLeod
Tor Books, 2016
ISBN-10: 0765382431
ISBN-13: 978-0765382436
Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition.

Stranded is the kind of book that generates plenty of hype and high expectations, and it delivers on all that’s promised, and more. It’s a genre-hopping blockbuster that draws immediate, apt, comparisons to The Terror, The Thing, and even The Twilight Zone: a tour-de-force of claustrophobic thrills that places the book in the same field as Simmons, Koontz, and Golden.

 
The ship Arctic Promise contains a motley crew of characters, drawn in vivid strokes. Noah, the main character, is on what he hopes to be his last mission, before heading home to his daughter. The captain of the Promise is also Noah’s father-in-law, and blames Noah for the death of his own daughter, Noah’s wife. The captain has no reservations about his thoughts of his son-in-law departing this world as soon as possible.
 

En route to a rig, the ship runs into a dense fog, and is soon stuck in ice.  The ice quickly surrounds them, trapping them, and sentencing them to a frozen death if they cannot find a way out.  One by one, the ship’s crew falls ill with a mysterious illness. Problems are further compounded by the loss of all communications with the outside world.  Finally, Noah and a team leave the ship, and head to a strange structure barely visible in the distance. What they discover there might have them wishing the weather had already killed them.

 
To deliver further details would only ruin the many surprises and twists that hide within the pages. Each time the story seems to settle in, the author wrenches readers into a deeper, darker world that is nothing like what is expected, but results in a plot that is nearly impossible to steer away from.

 
Bracken MacLeod has written a novel that undoubtedly will garner him a wide base of readers. Part thriller, part horror, part sci-fi, and all great story, Stranded is destined to be on the year’s “best of” lists and will likely become a film (it ought to be). The writing is strong, and the characters rich in depth, especially once they reach their destination.  This tale will stick with those who are brave enough to fall into the chilled, claustrophobic, world MacLeod has transported them to, leaving a sense of never having left the strange frozen world, just like the best of Rod Serling’s tales.

 
Recommended as one of 2016’s most thrilling reads.
 
Reviewed by David Simms

Posted on September 28, 2016 by , Reply

Book Review: They Say A Girl Died Here Once by Sarah Pinborough

They Say A Girl Died Here Once by Sarah Pinborough
Earthling Publications, October 2016
ISBN-13: 978-0996211833
Available: $35 signed & numbered hardcover; $400 lettered edition

It’s time once again for Earthling Publications’ Halloween present to horror readers. For the past 11 years, Paul Miller has given the gift that keeps on frightening; not once has he chosen a story, or author, that has disappointed. Every year, Earthling offers something different– a new twist on the classics, or a story that delves into a dark corner of the genre’s history.

This time, he has chosen author Sarah Pinborough, who has penned novels in various genres but always seems to return to horror, where she originally staked her claim, through a number of paperbacks from the defunct Leisure line, as one of those “writers to watch.”

With the success of Mayhem and The Forgotten Gods trilogy, she proved she wasn’t a flash in the pan. She is a master of thriller writing. Her ability to create a dark, horror-infused atmosphere lifts every one of her novels into a realm few writers have reached. Last year’s Death House pushed her into the ranks of the horror-writing elite, and should have swept the awards.

Now she’s back, with They Say A Girl Died Here Once, a ghost story that is as much a psychological thriller and a mystery as it is a horror novel. This disturbing family drama centers on teenage Anna and her family: her mother, little sister, and grandmother. While the tale of a family moving into a house with a dark past is a common trope, Pinborough sidesteps the expected, and delivers a new take on haunting, dark, family secrets.

Anna and her family have moved into a new town to escape the “thing” that happened to her back home: an incident that has fractured all her relationships, as well as her own sanity. She attempts to fit in with the teens she meets, and to participate in the normal activities of high school. Anna’s mother works odd hours, so Anna is also tasked with taking care of her grandmother, Evelyn, who is in the advanced stages of dementia. Evelyn’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic. She begins wandering the house, often winding up at the basement door, and speaking phrases that make little sense. The discovery of what has happened, both in the house and in the town, makes Anna curious enough to delve into the mystery, as she attempts to decipher the words of what has been speaking through her grandmother. What ensues pushes the tale down a new avenue in ghost stories. Each relationship Pinborough weaves is tenuous at best, from the creepy handyman who courts Anna’s mother, to the rebellious friend, to the other teens bent on finding out what the “thing” is in her past.

In lesser hands, They Say A Girl Died Here Once could have been just another ghost story. With her exquisite writing, Sarah Pinborough molds it into something special and unexpected. Her deft hand in creating atmosphere as a character is on display here, along with the individual characters who drag the reader into the depths of her nightmarish visions.

With this author, and Earthling as the publisher, this novel is very much recommended. The only downside is the limited print run, so pick it up quickly.

Reviewed by David Simms


Posted on September 21, 2016 by , Reply
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