REVIEW: The Spiderwick Chronicles written by Holly Black and Illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi

The Spi­der­wick Chron­i­cles by Holly Black and Tony DiTer­l­izzi (2003) is a five book box set of short sto­ries fea­tur­ing three ordi­nary kids who stum­ble into the hidden world of faeries.

Let me just say upfront that I love faerie sto­ries and the darker the better. Moving on. The Spi­der­wick Chron­i­cles are nowhere near the com­plex­ity of the Harry Potter books but they are still good reads for adults.

The story opens with the Grace family moving into their new home. They have left New York City to settle into the coun­try. While the nar­ra­tive is in third person, the story fol­lows Jared, a nine-​year old kid whose par­ents have recently divorced. His sib­lings include his twin brother, Simon, who keeps a menagerie of pets around him and his older sister Mal­lory, who is obsessed with fenc­ing. Since the divorce, Jared has had prob­lems at home and at school. How­ever, it isn’t too long after they’ve moved into their new home that life offers the Grace family some inter­est­ing dis­trac­tions.

It isn’t too soon after the kids have set­tled into their great aunt’s Spi­der­wick estate that they imme­di­ately begin to hear unex­plained rustling in the walls at night.

They explore the home only to dis­cover a secret library and Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fan­tas­ti­cal World Around You. It is an illus­trated book about faeries. The book exposes their secrets along with men­tion­ing other super­nat­ural crea­tures that inhabit our world.

Shortly after they are intro­duced to the book, we see the kids battle with gob­lins, fight with ogres, match wits with elves and solve rid­dles in order to escape back home. They even­tu­ally meet up with the biggest and bad­dest mon­ster of them all and he only wants one thing: the field guide.

The sto­ries are very quick reads and albeit, a bit pre­dictable. If you enjoyed Lord of the Rings then you would enjoy these sto­ries. I enjoyed The Spi­der­wick Chron­i­cles because the authors have a very vivid and cre­ative imagination.

Often­times there were scenes that were very sus­pense­ful and then there were scenes that had emo­tional under­tones, remind­ing the reader that despite all the fan­tas­ti­cal stuff that’s going on, this story is about a family in tran­si­tion. Holly Black does an out­stand­ing job of blend­ing the fan­tasy aspects of this story with that of modern day real­ity. It’s one of the rea­sons why I am drawn to her work.

If you enjoy fan­tasy then The Spi­der­wick Chron­i­cles are worth a look. The sto­ries are nicely illus­trated by Tony DiTer­l­izzi who brings depth and emo­tion to these char­ac­ters. I espe­cially loved the illus­trated pics of the many dif­fer­ent fey from the realm of Faerie.

I know some “young reader” books have crossover appeal that can be easily read by both chil­dren and adults. I’m afraid that The Spi­der­wick Chron­i­cles doesn’t seem to fit within that cat­e­gory to me but YMMV. My grade for this box set is a strong B. I’m sure many of you are already aware that the sto­ries have already been adapted to film and sequels have already been pub­lished since the release of this box set.

Note: The Spi­der­wick Chron­i­cles (Boxed Set): The Field Guide; The Seeing Stone; Lucinda’s Secret; The Iron­wood Tree; The Wrath of Mul­grath

Tagged as: Faerie world, Holly Black, illustrated stories, supernatural creatures, Tony DiTerlizzi, Young Readers