Building Empathy With ‘Miss Peregrine’s’

I recently read the young adult novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2011) by Ransom Riggs. And I also learned that a movie based on Miss Peregrine’s is set for release in early 2016. A forthcoming movie adaption almost always means that a number of youth I work with in an after-school program will be settling in to read the book.

What strikes me about Miss Peregrine’s is how easily the main character, a 16-year-old boy named Jacob, accepts differences in other children under Miss Peregrine’s care. In Miss Peregrine’s “loop”—a day lived over and over again that keeps the children safe and prevents them from aging—everyone has a special talent, a “peculiarity.” Jacob pretty much takes for granted all of these peculiarities, including invisibility, fire-starting, dreaming the future, levitating and plant whispering. What’s especially notable about Jacob’s acceptance is that in his world, which is our world, none of these things are “normal” in the slightest.

And this acceptance of others, on Jacob’s part, opens up an avenue for conversations with students about what it means to accept differences as gifts. This is especially important for teenagers, who often see themselves as outsiders, who focus on the ways that they are different from everyone around them, and who either work to conform or amplify the ways they don’t fit into one social circle, only to find themselves sliding into another.

Jacob is also an outsider. In his “real” life outside of Miss Peregrine’s world—the one that includes school and parents and a best friend—he’s mostly a loner who is set up to take over a family business he has no vested interest in. And in the world maintained by Miss Peregrine, he finds his community among the peculiars. He finds his own gift.

In anticipation that many of the youth I work with will read Miss Peregrine’s, I came up with the following discussion questions and prompts. These are based on Diversity Standard 9 from the Teaching Tolerance Anti-bias Framework: “Students will respond to diversity by building empathy, respect, understanding and connection.” Even students who haven’t read the book can respond to most of these questions and prompts in a more general discussion about diversity and empathy. You could even pair the questions with tasks and strategies from Perspectives for a Diverse America, such as “In Their Shoes” and “Listen Up! PSA for Change.”

• Jacob repeatedly expresses loneliness and feeling different from his peers, although he can’t identify how. What are some of the ways you can tell that someone feels lonely or different?

• What are some ways you can help someone feel less isolated? Give your response as though you’re on social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Yik Yak, Snapchat) and explain why you chose the medium you did.

• Jacob shows nearly immediate acceptance of the peculiar children. How do you think his grandfather’s stories helped or hindered this process?
   
• What impact do you think Jacob’s experience of feeling different from his peers had on his acceptance of the peculiar children?
   
• What do Jacob’s monsters, which want to both harm the peculiar children and acquire their peculiarities, symbolize?
   
• Miss Peregrine’s notes that all the photos included came from actual collections. Why do you think people are interested in the peculiar?

• (For older youth) Using a photo-editing tool, edit a picture of yourself to make yourself peculiar. What peculiar trait did you give yourself?
   
• Write a short story from the point of view of a peculiar person with a single superpower who must live in hiding from the rest of the world or risk certain death. Explain this hiding experience with these questions in mind:
  • Is this person with other people or alone?
  • Who, if anyone, helps this person?
  • How might it feel for this person to live in hiding, and to know that using the superpower will mean being destroyed by supernatural forces?

These questions and prompts can help students talk about their reactions to Miss Peregrine’s, including which characters they had the most (and least) empathy for and why. They’re also a good way to guide them into thinking about the people in their life who might be a little different and consider how they and others treat those people.

Clift works in an after-school program for youth and as the communications intern for the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault.