The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Field Guide
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| The Field Guide | |
| Author | Holly Black |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Tony DiTerlizzi |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Spiderwick Chronicles |
| Genre(s) | Children's |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
| Publication date | May 2003 |
| Pages | 128 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 978-0689859366 |
| Followed by | The Seeing Stone |
The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Field Guide is the first book in the Spiderwick Chronicles series, a popular series of illustrated children's fantasy books written by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black. The books are designed for school age and middle school age children. Like the A Series of Unfortunate Events series, volumes of this book are often hardbound and made to look like even older hardbound books. Pen and ink drawings appear throughout the books.
[edit] Plot summary
The story takes place in New England, United States. Nine-year-old twins Jared and Simon and thirteen-year-old Mallory have moved to the decrepit Spiderwick Estate with their mother, Helen.
At first Jared hears strange noises in the walls but thinks it's a squirrel. While in bed later that night he hears it again. Mallory comes and tells them to go with her to find out what the noise is. So Jared, Simon, and Mallory go downstairs to the kitchen and begin to investigate. After a short moment Mallory breaks out a chunk in the wall, and they find the nest of a strange creature. Then after they hear the scratching move upstairs, Jared goes up in the dumbwaiter to find out more. He finds himself in a room with no door. It is a secret library.
He climbs up to a room at the very top of the house and finds a chest. In a secret compartment; inside it, there is a package. Jared unwraps it to find a book called "Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You". It is full of information on faeries.
Jared discovers that the scratching and the incident with Mallory's hair was caused by a boggart, or a brownie turned bad. He attempts to convince his mother that he isn't the culprit, but gets into even more trouble.
He then realizes that the boggart is angry because he messed up the creature's nest. He gathers up all the lost things from the nest and puts them in a bird house, and a note saying sorry.
Several days later, while Jared, Simon and Mallory are in Uncle Arthur's study, a small man with a hat appears. The little man is in fact the boggart that had been causing them all the trouble. We find out later in the book that his name is Thimbletack. He commands them to throw away the Field Guide or suffer a terrible fate.
