The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Field Guide

Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black's The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Field Guide, is the first book in The Spiderwick Chronicles. This magical book is readable for all ages, with beautiful illustrations sprinkled throughout the novel. While this book had the kid friendly novelty of magical imps and fairies, it was the tough topics of broken families, poverty, and moving that were the most intriguing aspect of the book, at least for me. This book deals with a runaway father from the child's point of view, it maybe a small part of the novel, but it may be a nice connection for other kids who may be dealing with these kinds of issues so that their voices may not be so marginalized in children's literature. The mystery in this book was especially fun, and takes the reader on a magical adventure, discovering boggarts, brownies, pixies, and fairies. My nephew is especially fond of these stories, a large reason why I chose it, and he is constantly talking to me about pixies, trolls, and gnomes; he even created his own field guide, which is great for his writing skills and imagination. This book is also a quick read with short chapters, which makes it great for kids with shorter attention spans, encouraging them to read and be enthusiastic about reading without getting frustrated about not being able to finish a book that is too long. Overall it is a good book, but as I said before, fairly simple to read which might bore more advanced readers.