The Field Guide, The Spiderwick Chronicles by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black (5)

Twins Jared and Simon Grace, and their older sister Mallory, move with their mother to a decaying Victorian house in the first of The Spiderwick Chronicles. There they discover a secret room, and clues which eventually lead them to an old, handwritten and illustrated book, Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You.


I have had these books for a while but to be honest they are my daughter's .... I have been reading alot of fantasy recently and really wanted to pick these books up and see how they rated with the movie which I quite enjoyed !!!

This is book 1 ... There are 5 books in total which make up the movie .... So I will review each book as I read them .... This is quite short only 107 pages in total but it is not only hard backed which I love but also illustrated throughout beautifully .... It was a real joy to read !!!

One of my favourite lines from the books was:

"He didn't want to find an old, dead body, even if there was something really cool inside it" pg 51

It is a story of 3 children finding a book which opens up a whole new world to them .... It allows them to see Faeries and another creatures that we humans cannot see !!! It is filled with adventure and every young teen would gobble this book up !!

I rate this book 5*****

Well this is the second part of the review which is to compare it to the movie ....

I am all for the books ........ I just find that they have so much details etc which the movies do not portray .... I am also a visual person so the book ticks another box for me as the drawings are wonderful .... Although the visual effects in a movie can be stunning !!!

For being a short book it really does have alot of detail in it !!! Which does not portray on the screen !!! I vital part of the book for me was the finding of the note to locate The Field Book which is totally missing from the movie ...... So although the movie is good .... The book gets my thumbs up !!!