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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSJacob Portman grew up on his grandfather Abraham's stories about a children's home in Wales where a girl floated off the ground, a boy kept bees inside him, and a pipe-smoking bird kept everyone safe from monsters. Abe even had photographs to prove it. By high school Jacob has written the pictures off as fakes and the stories as his grandfather's way of describing something worse, the fact that Abe was the only one in his family to get out of Poland before the war. Then Abe dies in the woods behind his Florida house, whispering instructions about finding a bird, a loop, and the third of September, 1940. That night Jacob sees something in the trees that nobody else will admit was there. Months later he talks his father into taking him to the fogbound Welsh island of Cairnholm, where the children's home turns out to be a ruin gutted by a German bomb and abandoned for seventy years. What he does not expect is the first real evidence that his grandfather had not made any of it up.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
SPOILERSEvery one of these has the same answer, and that is the point. In a real battle the question is read aloud with a dozen other books in play, and students have a few seconds to place it. Here is what a battle might ask about Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Use them as a quiz, a trivia round, or BOTB practice.
Where in the book they come from
- Early in the book
In what book does a teenager build a scale model Empire State Building out of adult diaper boxes?
✓ Answer
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Jacob is trying to get himself fired from Smart Aid, so he builds a tower five feet across and then topples it with the toe of his sneaker. He calls this the last afternoon of Before, because his grandfather dies that night.
- First half
In what book does a golden-curled diner bend backward to bite her food with hidden jaws?
✓ Answer
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Claire Densmore has what Millard calls a backmouth, a set of sharp teeth tucked under her hair. She refuses to eat in front of anyone until the whole table badgers her into taking one bite out of a goose leg.
- First half
In what book does a falling bomb hang frozen with its tip balanced on a topiary man's finger?
✓ Answer
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
The bush is a leafy copy of Michelangelo's Adam with two blooming gardenias for eyes. The bomb stops in midair at the instant the day resets, an event the children call the changeover and treat like a fireworks display.
- Second half
In what book does a girl swallow her own handmade fire and blow it out unburned?
✓ Answer
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Emma Bloom makes fire with her bare hands, and this is her sideshow number in the backyard show the children stage for Jacob. Remember that Emma is the fire maker and Olive is the one who floats, since Olive performs just before her by slipping off her leaden shoes.
- Second half
In what book has a scholar spent three whole years taking notes on pigs alone?
✓ Answer
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Millard is compiling a complete account of one single day in the village, minute by minute, and he has been at it for twenty-seven years. Hugh teases him about the pig notes, but Millard insists the project will be unprecedented in the history of scholarship.
- Near the end
In what book does someone shout "Rise up, dead man. Rise up!" over a trough of ice?
✓ Answer
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Enoch burns through four sheep hearts in the fishmonger's icehouse before Martin's body finally stirs. The whole expedition exists because Enoch decided the simplest way to learn how Martin died was to ask him.
