TALE OF THE PECULIAR will offer up new mythology in the strange and beloved world of the MISS PEREGRINE’S trilogy!
Ransom Riggs may have completed the Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children trilogy, but that doesn’t mean he’s done with the world of the peculiars. In fact, he’s diving into the world once again to give fans even more strange adventure!
Companion book Tales of the Peculiar, a collection of in-world fairy tales, will give readers the same stories that their favorite peculiar characters grew up with. In classic storybook fashion, each story will be illustrated by Andrew Davidson, who also designed the book’s cover:
Tales of the Peculiar will hit shelves on Loop Day (September 3,) just a few weeks before the Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children movie hits theaters on September 30, 2016.
For now, you can check out an excerpt from one story within, “The Splendid Cannibals”:
The peculiars in the village of Swampmuck lived very modestly. They were farmers, and though they didn’t own fancy things and lived in flimsy houses made of reeds, they were healthy and joyful and wanted for little. Food grew bountifully in their gardens, clean water ran in the streams, and even their humble homes seemed like luxuries because the weather in Swampmuck was so fair, and the villagers were so devoted to their work that many, after a long day of mucking, would simply lie down and sleep in their swamps.
Harvest was their favorite time of year. Working round the clock, they gathered the best weeds that had grown in the swamp that season, bundled them onto donkey carts, and drove their bounty to the market town of Chipping Whippet, a five days’ ride, to sell what they could. It was difficult work. The swampweed was rough and tore their hands. The donkeys were ill-tempered and liked to bite. The road to market was pitted with holes and plagued by thieves. There were often grievous accidents, such as when Farmer Pullman, in a fit of overzealous harvesting, accidentally scythed off his neighbor’s leg. The neighbor, Farmer Hayworth, was understandably upset, but the villagers were such agreeable people that all was soon forgiven. The money they earned at market was paltry but enough to buy necessities and some rations of goat-rump besides, and with that rare treat as their centerpiece they threw a raucous festival that went on for days.
That very year, just after the festival had ended and the villagers were about to return to their toil in the swamps, three visitors arrived. Swampmuck rarely had visitors of any kind, as it was not the sort of place people wanted to visit, and it had certainly never had visitors like these: two men and a lady dressed head to toe in lush brocaded silk, riding on the backs of three fine Arabian horses. But though the visitors were obviously rich, they looked emaciated and swayed weakly in their bejeweled saddles.
The villagers gathered around them curiously, marveling at their beautiful clothes and horses.
“Don’t get too close!” Farmer Sally warned. “They look as if they might be sick.”
READ THE FULL EXCERPT HERE!
Here’s the author’s introduction to the tales:
“Prior to now, the Tales of the Peculiar was something that existed only in the world of my novels. They’re the beloved fairy tales and legends that the peculiar children grew up hearing, written by and about people with peculiar talents and afflictions. (They’re also meant for peculiar eyes only, so please, if you’re not someone who finds themselves floating out of bed in the middle of the night or sprouting flames from the palms of their hands, politely turn your attention elsewhere.) The tales are mostly folklore and meant primarily to be ripping good stories, but they also cover some important aspects of peculiar history, such as how Miss Peregrine’s time-looping predecessors came to be. The tale you’re about to read is both history and parable. Set in a distant era before peculiars lived in time loops, it concerns strange dealings between a peculiar village and a group of disarmingly polite cannibals. (Pun intended.)”
