A Line in the Sand

         Hugo Trailer Link   

         As the trailer promises, Hugo is one of those movies that takes you on an incredible journey, erasing the line that separates literature and art. While it doesn’t necessarily take a steady hand to commit words to a page, this movie, and others like it, forces me to reconsider that line in the first place. Like Hugo, Ransom Rigg’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children incorporates pictures into the text, making it a literature art “mutant” of sorts. Riggs breaks up the novel by revealing the secrets Jacob’s grandfather was keeping from him through his old photographs. By doing so, we as readers feel like we are a part of Jacob’s journey to self discovery, uncovering his grandfather’s past at the same moment that he does. When Jacob’s grandfather is killed by a monster that Jacob thought only existed in his bedtime stories, Jacob insists on revisiting the remote island where his grandfather grew up. Here he discovers a plethora of “peculiar” things, and quickly immerses himself in the supernatural.

With a book as dependent on pictures as on words, it only makes sense that this book is in the process of becoming the next Hunger Games franchise. It also helps that the author has some experience writing for the big screen, with award-winning short films such as Spaceboy, Portable Living Room, and The Accidental Sea under his belt. After looking up his IMDB page, I came to the conclusion that Ransom Riggs wrote this novel with the intention of turning it into a feature film. While thousands of books have been optioned as movies, such as To Kill A Mockingbird, Twilight, and The Time Traveler’s Wife, just to name a few, this is the first time it occurred to me that maybe these authors hadn’t simply stumbled into the Hollywood scene. Maybe a true writer’s ultimate aspiration is to create the story that can cross all medium barriers.

While I admire Riggs for his captivating plot, I don’t think that’s why his first novel has become so successful. As Hugo paved the way for all authors attempting to create a respectable chapter book with pictures, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children executed on an idea that’s already in full swing. Riggs uses pictures to maximize his reader’s engagement into the world he created, making for the EPIC reading experience. Although this does leave less to the reader’s imagination, a point that more avid readers will surely make, Riggs’ attempt to make the reading experience more dynamic is admirable in that I would think books like this entice more tweens to pick up a book and read. As I peeked over the shoulder of a girl flipping through the book in Barnes and Nobles, I immediately grabbed it off the shelf.

Sadly, with the number of bookstores that are being run out of business, I think that the printed word has to change in order for it to survive. Literary Darwinism, you could say. When you think about it, what we consider literature has been changing for years. Authors no longer write in the same style as Faulkner and Fitzgerald, who in their time differed from previous greats, such as Shakespeare. Storytelling may be an art that’s older than all of us, but in a way, it also becomes a new entity each day. With new technology, CGI animation, green screens, “respectable chapter books with pictures”, Ransom Riggs’ reminds us all that you can always see things differently. You never know, the line that separates art and literature may be there one moment, and gone the next.

            MOVIES WATCHED: 9

            SCREENPLAY PAGES WRITTEN: 35

            NOVEL PAGES WRITTEN: 65

            PAGES LEFT IN MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR

            PECULIAR CHILDREN: COMPLETED