Students Will Love "Peculiar Children"

Happy New Year, everyone!  I hope the school year has been a good one for you.  I'm back with a book review for a great story I enjoyed over the break.  Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is a delightful read, particularly for students who enjoy the fantastic and the creepy.  Miss Peregrine finds an intriguing balance between the two, and uses visual art to create a truly original experience for readers.

The story is tense, suspenseful, and emotional.  The author masterfully manipulates concepts of past and present, reality and illusion, splendor and horror, intricately weaving them all until they are indistinguishable in a lovely tapestry that makes the book hard to put down.  I highly recommend it, and I think it would be an ideal read-aloud for middle-grade classrooms.

If you're interested, rather than describe the plot for you, allow me to lead you to the author's excellent book trailer that convinced me to pick up the book.  The photos shown within it actually appear in the book!  Show the trailer to students and see if it gets them interested in reading this novel.  You could also pique their interest to read it by informing them that Tim Burton is in talks to direct the upcoming adaptation.  Check it out the trailer (not related to the film, which is still in the beginning stages):

Sherlock Holmes Gets a Makeover

After last week's spotlight on a character from a popular mystery series, it seems fitting that today's subject is a name that defines the entire genre:  Sherlock Holmes.  Readers who, just a few years ago, would find Cam Jansen entertaining can now apply their sleuth skills to a new series for more advanced readers.  The famous detective now has books that describe his emergence as a teen detective.

Check out this video for the series.  It really showcases what I love about book trailers (or book commercials).  Done well, they possess a cinematic feel that rival some of the enticing film and TV promos that students encounter.

Many young mystery fans will be so intrigued by Young Sherlock Holmes trailer that they will want to get their hands on this book and start uncovering clues.