Author:Holly Black Binding: Hardcover ISBN: 0689859368 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
"Such a waste of fancy paper and illustrator's time!"
"Great for kids"
"Cute but not Compelling"
"Good, Quick Read"
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Price: $8.61
List Price: $10.99 You save: $2.38 (21%)
Editorial Review:
Go away
close the book
put it down
do not look
The first book in a beautifully produced series of five, The Field Guide sets up the story of the Grace children--13-year-old Mallory and 9-year-old twins Jared and Simon--who with their mother move into the dilapidated Spiderwick Estate only to quickly find themselves sucked into a dark and fascinating world of faeries.
Superficially, the Spiderwick Chronicles smack of Lemony Snicket, with its "true story" setup and breathless warnings ("Go away/close the book/put it down/do not look"). But Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black owe no one for the intensely absorbing world they've created. Black certainly showed fey promise in her slightly freaky debut and DiTerlizzi has weird cred to spare, from his zany Jimmy Zangwow to countless credits for the Magic: The Gathering card game.
By combining their ample skill with thoughtful art direction and demanding production values, the duo has succeeded in creating a series with irresistible appeal. Each book promises a quick read, snappy plot progression, and dozens of DiTerlizzi's imaginative pen-and-ink drawings. So if you're drawn to The Field Guide at all, you might as well save yourself the trouble and make sure you have the second book (The Seeing Stone handy. (Ages 6 to 10) --Paul Hughes
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Such a waste of fancy paper and illustrator's time! We got the beautiful collection trunk valued over $100. It's filled with a great variety of expensive paper treatments and gorgeous illustrations (although most of them are black/white). It's definitely impressive as a present until you start reading. So I'm assuming the largest portion of the price is comprised of the cost of the book production.
As much as my son (8 y/o) loves the subject-matter of this kind, every time we read, his attention begins to wonder every 2 minutes. The language used in... more info
Great for kids After seeing the movie, which I loved, I purchased this book to give it a try. I know it's a children's book but thought what the heck. I loved the illustrations in the book, I wish "grown-up" books had pictures too. The reading was easy, as it should be. The book is very short, wish they would put together one book of all 5 in the series, instead of charging 10.00/each. I read this in about an hour. I enjoyed this book as much as the movie. I recommend this book for any fantasy lover out there and budding... more info
Cute but not Compelling I bought this book for myself not my kids. That may have been my first mistake. But I had suddenly felt out of the book series "bandwagon" loop so I decided to start reading this series. This was before any talk of the movie. I read it and it was a cute story. Very short (which I don't mind) and mildly amusing. The book however was more of an introduction in my opinion. It ended in a sorta clffhanger (if you can call it that). I ended up being curious about what would happen to the characters and how the... more info
Good, Quick Read This first book in the Spiderwick Chronicles was a fun, quick read. Although smacking a little bit of Lemony Snicket (three kids with unique skills and parent-abandonment issues), it is definitely worth a read. The presentation of the book, at least the edition I read, is nice too as the artwork parallels the tone of the text. This lends the book a definite ethos that although not as profound as some books (again like Lemony Snicket), it is distinct and engaging. As an adult reader, I did find the book... more info
