The Grownups Guide to Spiderwick: Part Two

In Part One of the Grownup's Guide to Spiderwick we covered the basics. You know a little bit about pixies and giants. You know about The Sight and Arthur's field guide. Now we will cover the books themselves. There are two main series at the moment, one of them just starting up recently and is not yet finished. There are also various books that are stand-alone field guides that go with the books. Not to mention the movie that came out last year and the video game that followed. There is a lot of material to cover but this guide will give a quick overview of each piece of the greater Spiderwick epic.

The Original Series

The Field Guide: This book mostly establishes the main character and setting. The three Grace children move into the Spiderwick Estate and soon discover a hidden room. In the room is a strange book (Arthur's field guide) that speaks of all sorts of strange creatures of fantasy. The kids also meet Thimbletack who is the house's brownie who used to be quite helpful but whom has turned into a nasty boggart that commands the children to not read the Field Guide or they will suffer a terrible fate.

The Seeing Stone: Simon Grace is kidnapped by invisible goblins. Thimbletack who has become a little bit more helpful now helps Jared find the Seeing Stone. It's an artifact created by Arthur Spiderwick to allow someone to see the world of faeries. Jared and his big sister go off to the goblin camp to rescue their brother. They meet the goblin Hogsqueal who promises to help the kids if they free him. Hogsqueal spits in the children's eyes causing them to have The Sight for good. They lead the goblins to a troll who eats them.

Lucinda's Secret: The kids visit their great aunt Lucinda who is a mental hospital because of her dealings with the faeries. She tells the story of Arthur Spiderwick, who wrote the guide and disappeared when she was just a small child. The kids stumble onto the forest of the elves where they meet more strange creatures. Jared is captured by the elves that want the Field Guide. Jared and his brother Simon use the fact that they are twins to play a trick on the elves and are able to escape.

The Ironwood Tree: Mallory Grace is kidnapped this time. Its not goblins, this time, that have taken a child, but dwarves who live in an abandoned quarry. They have put Mallory into a glass coffin where they say she can live forever. The twins are able to break her our but then have to try to escape the mines. They are chased by mechanical dogs and find the strange metal tree that the book is named after. While hiding they meet Mulgarath who is a terrible ogre that can change shape and has the dwarves destroyed for not finding the Field Guide.

The Wrath of Mulgarath: The evil ogre has the Field Guide and has destroyed the Spiderwick Estate in the early part of the final book in the series. The evil villain has also kidnapped the Grace kids parents and taken them to his vile fortress made of trash. Once there all three kids must battle Mulgarath and stop him from raising an army of dragons. They are able to save the day but I won't give away how. In the end of the book we even get to meet Arthur Spiderwick who has been living with the elves and thus has not aged.

The Beyond Spiderwick Series

The Nixie's Song: Nick Vargas is not a very happy kid and does not believe in faeries despite what his new stepsister says. Regardless he finds a nixie that gives him The Sigh and a quest. It seems her home has been destroyed and she needs help finding her sisters. A giant soon attacks Nick and his sister but survive because of the song of their new nixie friend. Arthur's Field Guide has been published now and the kids go to a book signing for advice, but the authors don't believe them. The Grace twins are there though and they lead them to a giant killer named Noseeum Jack. Old Jack helps the kids with their giant problem but warn of an even bigger group of giants that might destroy all of Florida.

A Giant Problem: As the old man predicted there are a lot more giants and they are tearing up the development where the Vargas kids live. To make things work the Nixie has left so the kids have to find some new singers to lure the giants away. They try to work with the mermaids but they end up kidnapping Nick's older surfer brother Jules. The kids do end up working out a deal with the mermaids after all and it looks like their giant problem is fixed. At the end of the book the Grace twins tell them that the giants were in Florida to help stop something even worse. What could be worse than giants?

The Wyrm King: A giant hydra that has been creating sinkholes might be worse than Giants. It appears that the giants that the Vargas children worked so hard to get rid of were helping to keep the giant hydra known as the Wyrm King at bay. Now that they are gone and the nixies have run off as well what will the Vargas kids be able to do to save all of Florida. Well you will just have to read to find out.

Other Books

Arthur Spiderwick's Notebook for Fantastical Observations: This book was released as an interactive storybook for those kids with a love for artistic expression. The book has new short stories from the world of Spiderwick but also has space for young artist to draw their own creations.

Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You: The field guide that plays such a big part in the books has been published. It is an amazing book that gives great detail to all the creatures that have been in the book and then some. The illustrations are amazing.

The Spiderwick Chronicles: Care and Feeding of Sprites: This book is a guide to Sprites, a type of faerie in the world of Spiderwick. The book is presented as a guide to taking care of sprites as pets. It talks about the different varieties of Sprites and what is needed to take care of them.

The Movie and the Game

The Spiderwick Chronicles (The Move): The movie was released in February of 2008 and is out on DVD. It takes the five books in the main series and makes it into one big story. It leaves out most of the content found in the Ironwood Tree and changes some of details towards the end. Still, it keeps with the spirit of the novels and the effects bring the wonderful illustrations to life.

The Spiderwick Chronicles (The Video Game): This game was put out for mostly all the systems and was based on the movies. It's a shame that they did not base it on the books because the game offers little for a true fan of the world.

Sources

The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi