Magic, Belonging, and Protection Theme Analysis

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children aptly centers on a home for children called “peculiars” who possess magical abilities like conjuring fire with their hands, levitation, or invisibility. The teenage protagonist Jacob learns about this home because his orphaned grandfather Abe lived there in the late 1930s. Peculiars are often outcasts among “common folk” and actively persecuted by monsters called “hollowgast”; it is this mistreatment which leads them to form communities to defend themselves. In endowing the children with magic, the novel ultimately suggests that the children’s differences are actually what make them special and enable them to find belonging and protection in a world that often targets them.

The book establishes how the children’s “peculiarities” and differences single them out and place them in danger. When Miss Peregrine explains to Jacob what peculiars are, she notes that in recent centuries, “common folk,” or non-peculiar people, turned against peculiars. She states, “The Muslims drove us out. The Christians burned us as witches. Even the pagans of Wales and Ireland eventually decided that we were all malevolent faeries and shape-shifting ghosts.” These historical examples illustrate how people often fear differences and target others for being different. Even in the modern age, Miss Peregrine emphasizes, “peculiar offspring of common parents are often abused and neglected in the most horrific ways.” Again, any differences that the children have can make them immediate outcasts, even among the people who are supposed to love them. As if that weren’t bad enough, the children are also persecuted by evil beings called hollowgast and wights—creatures that were at one time peculiar but whose souls have been completely corrupted. The hollows have an intense desire to feast on peculiar flesh so that they can become higher beings called wights, and so these monsters represent another way in which the peculiars are persecuted simply for being who they are.

But even though magic sets them apart, the book underscores how magic also provides the children with a sense of belonging and community. When Jacob first arrives at Miss Peregrine’s home, he sees that it is “exactly the paradise [his] grandfather had described,” providing the children with a safe haven away from the outside world. So, while magic sets them apart, it is also what has brought them together to form their idyllic community. Jacob personally experiences this community as well. While he has largely felt like a loner and an outsider in Florida, a girl at the home named Emma tells him that he “belong[s] here,” with the other children. She admits Jacob is peculiar, too, and it is this quality that enables him to build friendships and become a part of their adopted family. Jacob finds such a deep sense of belonging, in fact, that he chooses to stay with the peculiar children rather than return to his old life. In this way, the book emphasizes that the magic has provided Jacob with a new community, as he knows his parents could never fully understand the magic or his decision to leave home.

The children’s differences also protect them, demonstrating how magic doesn’t only make them outcasts, but it is actually what makes them special and helps them survive. Jacob is the clearest example of this idea: his peculiarity is that he can see the hollowgast that are coming after them, whereas other people can’t. While this makes “common folk” believe that Jacob is crazy and makes them want to avoid him, it helps him provide the other peculiar children with protection from the monsters. The same is true of many of the other children. Enoch’s ability to revive dead people is what helps them figure out that the hollowgast and wights have arrived on Cairnholm Island; Millard’s invisibility prevents him from being seen and captured by the wights; Emma’s ability to conjure fire and Bronwyn’s strength help them fight a wight named Dr. Golan, who threatens them with a gun. In all of these examples, the children’s magic is what saves the day, showing how it makes them special and provides protection even as it causes others to target them.

It is also worth noting that the book makes some parallels between the children’s experiences and Jewish people’s experiences during the war, as Abe was also Jewish and escaped the Nazis in Poland. Before Jacob recognizes that his grandfather’s tales about the children are true, Jacob thinks that the children were all Jewish and that the monsters chasing them were not hollowgast but Nazis. He states, “The peculiarity for which they'd been hunted was simply their Jewishness. […] What made them amazing wasn't that they had miraculous powers; that they had escaped the ghettos and gas chambers was miracle enough.” This parallel further reinforces the point that differences can both paint targets on people’s backs and make them unique, providing them with the tight bond of community.