Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

First line: “I had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when extraordinary things began to happen.”

Jacob Portman grew up with fantastic and tall tales told to him by his Grandfather Portman in which he used very odd pictures as illustrations.

Jacob describes his Grandpa, “Growing up, Grandpa Portman was the most fascinating person I knew. He had lived in an orphanage, fought in wars, crossed oceans by steamship and deserts on horseback, performed in circuses, knew everything about guns and self-defense and surviving in the wilderness and spoke at least three languages that weren’t English.” Jacob and his father travel to Cairnholm in Wales to see the orphanage his grandfather had been sent to during the war and while there, some very odd things occurred. An unusual first book complete with quirky vintage photographs makes for fun reading.

Ransom Riggs has a blog: http://www.ransomriggs.com/