Have you ever felt like there was something strange about you, something special that no one has noticed or wanted to notice? Jacob Portman did, and so did his grandpa, Abraham Portman. The difference between them was that Grandpa Portman knew why he was different, even if his family didn’t, and had used his strangeness to help others like him. However, when Abraham is killed suddenly in what appears to be a wild animal attack, Jacob can’t resist the urge to find the fabled school full of children with peculiar abilities from his grandfather’s stories. What he discovers is a bombed-out orphanage, a school trapped in World War II Britain, and his own peculiarity.

This book, and it’s sequels, speak a lot about holding onto the past, the benefits of it and dangers it poses, along with the power of life-long friendships. The most hard-hitting message, though, is the benefit of being “peculiar”. The world might label people who are different as having problems, needing to be “fixed”, or being deficient in something. But really, peculiarities aren’t an absence of normality, simply something extra which makes a person capable of different things. I think this is important for us to realize, as teachers. Don’t approach students from a deficit viewpoint, but see their abilities and the extras they bring to the table first.