Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children begins in Florida where Jacob finds his grandfather dying in the woods after being mauled. As a young boy, Jacob is mesmerized by his grandfather’s stories of escaping the monsters that were chasing him in World War II and living in a home for peculiar children. As he gets older, Jacob no longer believes his grandfather’s stories, but as his grandfather lies dying, the last words he speaks to Jacob sends him on an adventure to discover his grandfather’s past.

Jacob and his father travel to a fictional island off the coast of Wales called Cairnholm Island. This is the setting for most of the book. On this remote island, Jacob explores the remains of Miss Peregrine’s dilapidated home that housed the peculiar children. The setting of the dark, spooky children’s home and the unique characters on the island add to the suspense of the story.

The main investigative action in the story is set on Cairnholm Island which is located close to Wales, a small country west of England. A cairn is a pile of rocks, created as people move rocks from scattered locations to the pile. A cairn usually marks a significant place that people want to be able to remember and relocate.

The island was the location of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, the mysterious and now decaying old building that had been home for Jacob's grandfather. The story follows Jacob as he attempts to overcome his fears and anxieties while trying to piece together the stories held within the walls of the abandoned orphanage.

And that is how someone who is unusally susceptible to nightmares, night terrors, the Creeps, the Willies and the Seeing Things That Aren't Really There talks himself into making one last trip to the abandoned, almost-certainly-haunted house where a dozen or more children met their untimely end.