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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fairies galore,
By
This review is from: The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Field Guide, Book 1 (Hardcover)
This is a great start to a fun series. Kids will love to read this book and the others. They are only 100 pages each, with a picture on every other page, to it is great for a first chapter book. They are also wonderful to read aloud to kids. I read them as an adult and loved the entire series.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Starter Series,
This review is from: The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Field Guide, Book 1 (Hardcover)
I love this series for the beginning chapter book reader. There are not many pages so the story gets to the climax rather quickly which helps keep children's attention. I thought the chapters were a little long (about 15 pages) for the younger group, but many of those have pictures on them so they're not too bad. I think it's a nice story about siblings working together and becoming a part of this whole other world that only they know about. This series really reminds me of the Lemony Snickett Series. I would recommend this to others.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Click clack watch your back,
This review is from: The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Field Guide, Book 1 (Hardcover)
According to Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi, the text of this story was left for them by three mystery kids.
With that stab at blurring the boundaries between fantasy and reality, these two authors slip easily into a haunted house tale that rapidly blossoms into a story of hidden fae and strange creatures. The first of the Spiderwick Chronicles -- "The Field Guide" -- is a staggering brief story that sets up mysteries, marvels and everything that come after. After their parents' divorce, the Grace kids -- teenage Mallory and nine-year-old twins Jared and Simon -- move with their mother to a crumbling old Victorian house, owned by a weird old aunt. Jared is having a rough time with all of this, but he's distracted from his personal woes by a "squirrel" scuttling around inside the walls. And their investigations reveal a strange little stash of items that were obviously not taken by a squirrel. An exploratory trip in a dumbwaiter takes Jared to a hidden library full of strange books on mythic creatures -- and soon strange things start happening to the family. Jared's further investigations uncover a strange little book called "Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide To The Fantastical World Around You," a little guide to faery creatures. Jared begins to believe that the unbelievable might be true -- that there are faeries causing trouble in his new home -- but his siblings are a bit more reluctant. For the record, "The Field Guide" is a short book in a short series full of short books. It's only about a hundred pages of heavily-illustrated text, and we're not talking large pages. It's more like the first chapters of a longer novel -- and it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. But Holly Black's writing style definitely makes it worth reading. Though the storyline is pretty simple, she weaves a web of subtle, eerie strangeness around the seemingly ordinary circumstances, and builds an increasing sense of dusty, leaf-strewn age around the house. And despite the Victorian house, the sprites and faery creatures here are anything but Victorian -- sometimes ugly, bizarre or malicious (such as when Mallory's hair is tied to her bed). And Tony DiTerlizzi's artwork is simply perfect for the story that he and Black are telling. He crafts lots of intricate pen-and-ink drawings, shadowy depictions of the decayed Victorian mansion, and illustrations of the weirder aspects of the Spiderwick estate (like the dusty library, or the vaguely Satanic door-knocker). The highlights are the old scribbled-on papers of Arthur Spiderwick, including a picture of a household boggart. The main characters are also quite believable: Mallory is a loving but slightly brittle teenager, and the mom is clearly struggling to stay afloat after her divorce. And the twins Jared and Simon (who can be told apart by their hairstyles) make good protagonists for the book, especially since they're so different -- Simon is a tidy animal enthusiast, while the more prominent Jared is a kid who is starting to sink into trouble after his parents' divorce. "The Field Guide" is a good opening chapter for the Spiderwick Chronicles, building up a sense of suspense, eerie fantasy and otherworldly creatures. Just have the second part on hand before you finish.
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