The Spiderwick Chronicles
The Spiderwick Chronicles is a series of children's fantasy books by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black. They chronicle the adventures of the Grace children, twins Simon and Jared and their older sister Mallory, after they move into the Spiderwick Estate and discover a world of fairies that they never knew existed. The first book, The Field Guide, was published in 2003 and then followed by The Seeing Stone , Lucinda's Secret , The Ironwood Tree , and The Wrath of Mulgarath . Several companion books have been published including Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You , Notebook for Fantastical Observations , and Care and Feeding of Sprites. A second series, entitled Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles, includes The Nixie's Song, A Giant Problem, and The Wyrm King.
A feature film adaptation, also titled The Spiderwick Chronicles, was produced by Nickelodeon Movies and premiered on February 14, 2008; an accompanying video game was released in early February 2008.
Books
''The Spiderwick Chronicles''
''The Field Guide''
The first book in the series was published in May 2003. It opens in Maine, where nine-year-old identical twins Jared and Simon and their thirteen-year-old sister Mallory move into the decrepit Spiderwick Estate with their mother, Helen. On the first night, they discover a secret library on the second floor using a dumbwaiter. They later discover that the library connects to the rest of the house via a hidden door in a hall closet. A brownie named Thimbletack, who has lived in the house for years, becomes angry with the Grace children when they destroy his nest inside the walls, and Jared is blamed for the ensuing havoc wrought by the brownie in retaliation including assaults on Mallory, Simon, and the trashing of the kitchen. Following a clue in the form of a riddle-poem, Jared finds Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around ''You in a secret compartment in a trunk in the attic. The Field Guide'' is an old hand-written and illustrated book with information on different types of faeries in the surrounding forest. The novel ends as the Grace children make amends with Thimbletack by building him a new home out of an old birdhouse. Thimbletack then warns them that the book which they found is dangerous and was not meant to be in the hands of mortals.''The Seeing Stone''
The Seeing Stone was published alongside the first book in May 2003. After the Grace children ignore Thimbletack's warning to destroy the Guide, Simon is abducted by a group of goblins who live in the woods surrounding the house. Thimbletack leads Jared and Mallory to the old carriage house where they find a "seeing stone" which gives the wearer, in this case Jared, the ability to see faeries. After Jared and Mallory narrowly avoid being captured by the goblins, they go searching for Simon in the woods. On their way through the forest, they encounter a troll residing in the river by a decrepit stone bridge. Partially protected by the daylight, they are able to avoid it, but lose their fencing weapons. Then they find a single brown shoe belonging to Simon. After encountering a wounded griffin, they find the goblin camp and a plethora of prisoners hanging in cages made from refuse from the trees. While trying to rescue Simon, they meet a prisoner named Hogsqueal, a hobgoblin, who convinces them to help him escape in exchange for his help in rescuing Simon. Hogsqueal offers to spit in their eyes, which gives them the Sight without using the stone. Hogsqueal distracts the goblins from the children's escape and in return, Jared, Simon and Mallory attract the goblins' attention away from Hogsqueal and then flee, leading the goblins back to the troll. Jared convinces the troll to let them escape in return for leading the goblins to him to eat. After they arrive home, Simon convinces them to return to the now empty camp to release the rest of the goblins' victims and they take the injured griffin to the carriage house. After getting grounded by their scared and angry mother for worrying her and coming home late, they discover that Thimbletack, enraged at Jared's forceful taking of the seeing stone, has again become a Boggart and reverted to his mischievous ways.''Lucinda's Secret''
Lucinda's Secret was published on October 1, 2003. The novel opens upon an argument among the Grace children on whether or not to destroy the Field Guide, Jared alone insisting that they keep it. They eventually agree to consult their Great-Aunt Lucinda, who is now staying in a psychiatric hospital and is the only person whom they know to have been in contact with Arthur Spiderwick, who was her father. When they ask her about Arthur, it is revealed that the last time she saw him was one day when she was a little girl, on which Arthur had set out from the house on foot and never returned. She is horrified that the Grace family is staying at the Estate, which she says is not safe, and even more worried when she hears that they have the Guide, believing her father to have taken it with him when he disappeared. Lucinda warns the children that they have to get out of the house with the guide. However, when Jared takes the book from his backpack to show her, it has been replaced with another book by Thimbletack. Once home, the Grace children decide to find out what happened to their great-great uncle, and set out from the Estate with a map of the area on which is written "September 14th. Five O'clock. Bring the remains of the book." On their journey they meet a Phooka: a creature that talks only in riddles. They finally reach a river grove inhabited by elves, who threaten to trap one of the children there unless the guide is given to them. The children flee, however, promising to bring the Guide as soon as they can. On passing by the Phooka again, one of his riddles leads them to think that Arthur is still alive, but imprisoned in Faerie with the elves.''The Ironwood Tree''
Published on April 6, 2004. The family attends Mallory's fencing match at school. During the tournament, Jared finds a boy identical to him going through Mallory's bag. He transforms into a smaller child when Jared attempts to scare him with his pocket knife. When Jared and Simon discover that Mallory has disappeared, they search for her in an abandoned quarry, but wind up being kept prisoner by dwarves. Mallory is revealed to be sleeping in a glass-coffin dressed in medieval garb, with the dwarves saying she is now immortal, so long as she stays in the coffin. Escaping their cage, the twins free Mallory and meet a strange creature, called a knocker, who tells them the way out by listening to the stones. They next see a huge metal tree, made by the dwarves, called the Ironwood Tree. After a narrow escape from the dwarves' mechanical dogs, they make their way out of the tunnel but have to hide before leaving. They secretly watch Mulgarath, a shapeshifting ogre who wants to rule the world, callously orders the death of the dwarves for having been tricked into not getting the Field Guide from Jared. The dwarves are mauled to death by the goblins and Mulgarath reveals that he had the Guide the whole time. The siblings escape just after Mulgarath leaves with his goblins and the weapons made by the dwarves.''The Wrath of Mulgarath''
The Wrath of Mulgarath was published on September 7, 2004. The Grace children return from the quarry to the Spiderwick estate, only to find the house in ruins and their mother gone. Hogsqueal the hobgoblin informs them that the house was destroyed by the goblins who have kidnapped their mother and taken her to the palace of their fearsome master, Mulgarath the ogre. Accompanied by Hogsqueal, the siblings journey to Mulgarath's palace, an immense citadel made of garbage where they battle a legion of goblins. Mallory runs the leader through with her sword and is greatly traumatized by having actually killed a living sentient being. Nevertheless, she and her brothers defeat the goblins and discover Mulgarath's plan. The ogre has learned from the Field Guide that fresh cows' milk makes young dragons rapidly mature. He has stolen a number of cows and is using them to breed an army of dragons with which he plans to conquer the world. Byron, the griffin, successfully vanquishes the mother dragon and Simon kills the young ones. Infiltrating the palace, they find their mother and father held captive. They release their parents, but discover that their father is actually Mulgarath in disguise. Jared has Thimbletack wrap chains around Simon and Mallory to save them. The ogre brags of his plan and reveals that the Field Guide is underneath his throne, and Jared mockingly tells Mulgarath that he and his siblings have killed all the dragons. In a rage, Mulgarath flings Simon and Mallory out of the window but Thimbletack's chains hold, and they don't fall far. Jared stabs Mulgarath in the foot with Mallory's sword, then knocks him out of the window. Mulgarath falls and transforms into a swallow to escape, but is snatched and eaten by Hogsqueal.The children return home, where Jared and his mother reconcile. Although Jared is expelled from school, he and Simon are enrolled in a private school. The Grace family meets Arthur Spiderwick, who had been living with the elves and so had not aged. He and his daughter Lucinda, now an elderly woman, share a poignant goodbye, and he turns to dust. With Mulgarath defeated, the Grace family is now free to live happily ever after.
''Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles''
''The Nixie's Song''
This story takes place in Florida, where 11-year-old Nick Vargas lives with his brother, Jules, his weird stepsister, Laurie, his father, Paul, and his stepmother, Charlene, in his father's housing development. Laurie has read the Spiderwick Chronicles and believes in faeries. Nick thinks she is "lame" and wishes she would leave him alone. After finding a four-leafed clover he sees a nixie unconscious in his yard, which he and Laurie carry into a nearby artificial pond.On the following day, the Nixie, named Taloa, gives Nick and Laurie the Sight and sends them to find her six sisters, who were separated when their pond was destroyed. They leave after a faerie fills Nick's father's car with sand to look for Taloa's sisters at her old pond. They find the pond dried, the surrounding forest burnt and the bodies of three of the nixies, accidentally waking up a giant, which they mistook for a hill. They flee from the giant, who becomes hypnotized and calm when it hears Taloa's singing.
The children decide to ask the authors of The Spiderwick Chronicles themselves for advice at a book signing, convincing Jules to drive them. Once there, they are disappointed when Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black don't believe them, but they then run into Jared and Simon Grace, who offer to help them gather useful information. Jared tells them about a giant expert who lived nearby and they plan to meet at his address. The place appears to be deserted, and after a quick incident with Will-O'-the-Wisps, the kids take several papers including a diagram of a giant trap. While the giant is hypnotized by the nixie's song, the three kids use a rope to tie the giant's foot to its neck. It thrashes around, strangling itself with the cords, leaving the kids horrified at what they've done. When the giant stops moving, an old man called Noseeum Jack approaches, revealing to be the son of the giant expert who met Arthur Spiderwick, and a giant slayer himself, killing the giant definitely. He explains that the giants sleep for 500 years at a time and all wake up at once, bringing panic and destruction to anywhere they go, and that soon all of Florida's giants would be waking up.