The Spiderwick Chronicles

The Grace children—twins Jared and Simon, plus their older sister Mallory—move into the crumbling Spiderwick Estate in Maine and stumble into a hidden realm of fairies. This is the core of *The Spiderwick Chronicles*, a fantasy series for children co-authored by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black. The first installment, *The Field Guide*, came out in 2003, and four main books followed: *The Seeing Stone* (2003), *Lucinda's Secret* (2003), *The Ironwood Tree* (2004), and *The Wrath of Mulgarath* (2004). Several companion volumes were also released, including *Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You* (2005), *Notebook for Fantastical Observations* (2005), and *Care and Feeding of Sprites* (2006). A sequel series, *Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles*, ran from 2007 to 2009 with three books: *The Nixie's Song*, *A Giant Problem*, and *The Wyrm King*. A film adaptation, produced by Nickelodeon Movies, hit theaters on February 14, 2008, and a video game tied to it came out just before that, in early February 2008.

In the opening book, the family discovers a hidden library via a dumbwaiter, connected by a secret door in a hall closet. A brownie named Thimbletack, long living in the walls, gets angry when the children wreck his nest; he retaliates by attacking Mallory and Simon and trashing the kitchen, with Jared taking the blame. Following a riddle-poem, Jared finds Arthur Spiderwick’s hand-illustrated field guide in a trunk in the attic, detailing local faeries. The children make peace with Thimbletack by building him a new home from an old birdhouse, but he warns them the book is dangerous for mortals.

*The Seeing Stone* picks up after the children ignore that warning. Goblins abduct Simon. Thimbletack leads Jared and Mallory to an old carriage house, where they find a seeing stone—a stone with a natural hole—that lets Jared see faeries. They evade a troll under a bridge, lose their fencing weapons, and find Simon’s shoe. After meeting a wounded griffin, they reach a goblin camp full of prisoners in cages. A hobgoblin named Hogsqueal helps them escape by spitting in their eyes to give them the Sight, and they trick the troll into eating the pursuing goblins. They free the other prisoners and bring the griffin home, but their mother grounds them. Thimbletack, angry about the seeing stone, turns back into a mischievous boggart.