Everything You Need to Know About the Miss Peregrine Series Before Reading Library of Souls

What Happened Before?
In the first book, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, readers meet Jacob, a 16-year-old who grew up listening to his grandfather’s tall tales. These aren’t the usual epic yarns: He tells Jacob stories of kids with special powers and horrifying creatures that lurk in the darkest shadows. As you’d expect, Jacob is pretty dismissive of his grandfather’s ramblings. But when a family tragedy strikes, he finds himself on an adventure to seek out the truth behind the stories, and his grandfather’s odd photographs of “peculiar” children. This journey takes Jacob from Florida to Wales, and it’s there that his grandfather’s stories turn out to be all too real.
Jacob finds himself in a world surrounded by incredibly unique teens. Some can throw fire, summon bees, bring clay to life, and walk around unseen. Their gifts are strange and appropriately peculiar, as that’s what these magical people are called. Not wizards or mutants: Peculiars. They live in a home run by Miss Peregrine, who protects her peculiar children from the outside world using a time loop, keeping them safe in a never-ending day in 1940. As Jacob’s doubt and skepticism fades with each fresh revelation, he starts to realize he might be a peculiar too, and a rather powerful one at that: he can see things, evil things, that no one else can.
The pressure mounts as he summons up the courage to harness his gift and follow in his grandfather’s footsteps, in the hopes of saving his new friends and the amazing world they live in. His world expands as he moves forward and grows, learning not just about superpowers and time travel, but about love and friendship. Seriously, I challenge you not to ship Jacob and Emma. Their relationship is one of the oddest in YA, and you can’t help but love it in all of its sweet weirdness.

The sequel, Hollow City, finds Jacob fully embracing his peculiar gift, and venturing off of Miss Peregrine’s little island to what’s considered the capital of the peculiar world: London. But the era? 1940s London, right in the middle of World War II, as the city is being bombed. Jacob and his friends are on a mission to save one of their good friends; which one, I won’t say, just in case you’ve yet to pick up the first book. Along the way they meet new friends and allies in their quest, and dive further into the peculiar world than ever before.
Talking animals, a traveling circus, and the war-torn landscape of London made Hollow City an even more imaginative, immersive read than its predecessor.

What’s Happening Now?
Enter Library of Souls, the third and final book in Riggs’ imaginative trilogy. The band of peculiar children continue to press through the war-torn landscape, as Jacob’s abilities develop into something even greater. They’re pushing forward on a quest to save a friend (again, no spoilers!), and the stakes are higher than ever. And the questions are many: What happens when they leave the time loop? Will Jacob and Emma be together? Will Jacob return to the present, leaving behind his cohorts? So many questions, and I can’t wait to have them answered.
If you’re thinking of jumping into the series as a newbie, be sure to start with the first book (or graphic novel, more on that below), and try your best to avoid spoilers. There are some really fun twists and turns I’d hate to see ruined for you.
More fun stuff
For those of you who are already fans of Miss Peregrine’s peculiar world, here are some fun facts you might not know about the series and its creator.
Ransom Riggs directed his own book trailer
True story. Riggs traveled to the Netherlands just to capture the perfect house on film.

The hardcovers have Easter eggs!
If you look under the dust jacket of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, you’ll find Miss Peregrine’s signature on the book. On Hollow City, there’s a little hidden bit of text in silver. As for Library of Souls? Here’s Jason Rekulak, publisher at Quirk Books:
We at Quirk Books love to hide little secrets and surprises under the jackets of our books.  Most of them go unseen, because most readers never remove the jackets from their hardcovers. But we put them there anyway, like easter eggs, for the 1 in 100 people who find them. For example, if you look under the jacket of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, you’ll see that Alma Peregrine’s signature is on the case. For Library of Souls, I wanted to do something a little more ambitious, and Ransom had a really terrific idea. I won’t spoil it here….but if you get the book, make sure you look under the jacket!
There you have it: something special is waiting under the dust jacket of Library of Souls. Commence wild speculation.
Tim Burton is directing the movie
It’s scheduled to hit theaters next year, with Eva Green as Miss Peregrine and Asa Butterfield as Jacob. The cast is pretty extraordinary, including Judi Dench, Samuel L. Jackson, Chris O’Dowd, Allison Janney, and more.

There’s a graphic novel
Need a quick refresher on the first book? Pick up the graphic novel, published by Yen Press. It’s illustrated by the same artist who worked on the graphic novel adaptations of Beautiful Creatures and The Bane Chronicles. An adaptation of Hollow City will follow in January 2016.
Library of Souls is on sale September 22, and available for pre-order now.