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.
The Restless Dead: Ten Original Tales of the Supernatural, edited by Deborah Noyes. With authors like Kelly Link and Annette Curtis Klause contributing, you will surely find something here to give you the creeps.
Fear: 13 Stories of Suspense and Horror, edited by R.L. Stine. This collection has an interesting collection of writers, including F.Paul Wilson and Heather Graham, who write thrillers for adults, and Peg Kehret, who writes middle grade mysteries and suspense. So it’s not surprising that the collection is somewhat of a mixed bag– but there’s also quite a lot of variety!
All Hallows’ Eve: 13 Stories by Vivian Vande Velde. This is an individual collection, and again, these are stories of the supernatural and spooky rather than the gory. Vivian Vande Velde is a fantastic writer and this could be a good way to see if you like her stuff before trying out a longer work. And, of course, this collection is thematically about Halloween, so how could I leave it out?
Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link. One of the stories in this book, “The Wrong Grave”, is also in The Restless Dead, mentioned above. So if you tried that and liked it, definitely pick up Pretty Monsters. These are not typical scary stories, but they’ll definitely creep you out! Kelly Link is a favorite author of mine, and I really recommend this one.
Ghostly Gallery: Eleven Spooky Stories for Young People edited by Alfred Hitchcock. This is just one of a series of short story anthologies that Hitchcock published in the 1970’s and that were available in libraries and through Scholastic book orders in the 1980s as well. It’s really a tragedy that these volumes and others like them are no longer in print, as most of the early exposure I had to scary stories was through these types of books.
Roald Dahl’s Book of Ghost Stories edited by Roald Dahl. You may think of Roald Dahl as a children’s author, but he also wrote for adults and really, even in his children’s books, proves that he is a master of the macabre. His choices here include many older, classic, ghost stories, from authors such as Sheridan Le Fanu, Edith Wharton, and Robert Aickman. These are literary horror stories, some quite frightening, so I’d recommend it for older teens.
The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural by Patricia McKissack, illustrated by Brian Pinkney. These stories have the eerie feeling of truth to them, possibly because of McKissack’s introduction, where she describes listening to the stories the adults around her told when she was a child. This is a Caldecott Award winner, and also a Coretta Scott King award winner, but beyond that, it’s just really good storytelling, made even better by the dramatic illustrations. I have this on Kindle, and I’ve got to say, this is one of the books that you really need to hold in your hands and see the artwork complementing the story across a double page spread, to truly appreciate. Don’t let the award for children’s book illustration fool you: this book is often used with and appreciated by middle school aged kids and older.
The Scary Stories Treasury: Three Books to Chill Your Bones, Collected From Folklore, edited by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell. Make sure you have the books illustrated by Stephen Gammell. I don’t care how old you are, these are still scary. And I’m definitely not the only one to think so– read 
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