Book Review: The Spiderwick Chronicles: Goblins Attack: Special Edition of the Seeing Stone.

This is a small book put together as a book for young readers.  It has a couple chapters from “The Seeing Stone” where Jared takes the seeing stone, and Simon is hauled off kidnapped by the goblins.  It also has an extra chapter of events that took place before the Simons moved into their aunt’s house.  Thimbletack was content with being a Brownie, keeping the house clean after Aunt Lucinda went away, always looking for her to return.  But 25 years was a bit much.  In addition the goblins attacked, asking for the secret book, which he has been protecting all this time.  He is only able to escape using his wit, but as he sits in the chair and thinks of his lot, he becomes more angry and more angry.  Why should he have to protect the book.  As he thinks, he slowly turns into a Boggart, and doesn’t care that water has spilled, and mixed with soot staining the carpet.

Book Review: Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicle: A Giant Problem

Yes, giants are a problem, especially when they wake after 500 years, and are hungry, and blow fire. In fact giants are very dangerous.  What to do with 200 or so giants is the question, before they destroy everything.  This is the problem faced by south Florida, and Nick and his sister Laura take giant killing lessons from Noseeum Jack.  however they see little point.  However in the end, Jack's son comes and takes him way saying he is too old.  He does give Nick some paperwork, with which he comes up with an idea, to get the mermaids to sing the giants to the ocean.   Laura tricks Jules, their brother by giving him a four-leaf clover in a key chain, and thereby gives him the "sight."  They meet the mermaids, but they don't care about the giants.  They take Jules for themselves and tell them to find a fish not seen in their waters and they will give him back and sing.  Jules' girlfriend who is with them, her father has an aquarium and they go to his home and steal a fish.  The mermaids give Jules back, but only sing for a few minutes.  However Nick captured it on tape and can put it on a loop.  He attaches it to his model boat, and they drive through the country side getting the giants to follow them.  Nick launches the boat in the ocean, and mission accomplished, or is.  They learn at the end that there are things worse than giants that the giants were suppose to control.
This book kept the excitement up, and the intrigue as to what happens next.

Book Review: Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicle: The Nixie’s song.

Nick’s mother passed away, and his father remarried.  He is now moved out of his room and in with his older brother to make way for his stepsister Laurie.  Nick thinks she is strange, which she is.  She has read all the Spiderwick books and guides, and is convinced there are faeries.  However she has never seen one.  She does go looking for them however, giving Nick the assignment to find a four-leaf clover.  This is one tool to see faeries.  Nick finds one, and with it comes upon a Nixie named Taloa, almost dead in his yard.  He risks being grounded as he carries it to a pond because it needs water.  The Nixie gives Laurie and Nick the "sight" (ability to see faeries).  The Nixie sends Nick and Laurie on a mission to find her lost sisters, six of them.  While searching the happen upon a burn pond, with the charred dead bodies of three nixies.  They rest on a hill, and wake a giant, and now have a big problem.  The giant chases them, but then is entranced by the Nixie singing.  It stops being aggressive and looks at the ocean.  They convince the Nixie to keep singing, and get a ride from Nick’s brother, Jules to a book signing for the Spiderwick authors, who don’t believe them, but they run into Jared and Simon Grace from the Chronicles who are at the signing and in the area with their father.  They do believe them.  With the Grace kids they visit the old shack of a man who use to communicate with their great uncle, where they find some of Arthur Spiderwick’s papers which Jared takes.  There is also a how-to paper of capturing a giant.  They trap a giant, and they see it struggling in such a way that it may die.  They and are afraid for it, when the owner of the shack, Noseeum Jack, makes an appearance and terminates the giant.  End of book one.

I enjoyed getting back to this series.  I am not sure if I like using the other books and characters as part of the plot.

Book Review: The Wrath of Mulgarath: Spiderwick Chronicles (5)

This is the concluding episode.  The Grace children return home after their adventure with the dwarves, only to find their home torn apart and their mother gone; even the Arthur Spiderwick library has been destroyed.  Mulgarath has been there.  Thimbletack the house brownie laments that he has failed.  Not only was he unable to protect the home, but Mulgarath has gotten the field guide.  The fly the Griffin to the junk yard, where Mulgarath has his castle.  First Jared visits the elves, and asks if he can see Andrew Spiderwick.  He hopes to learn something to help him battle Mulgarath.  The main piece of knowledge he gains is that ogres like to brag about themselves.  As they approach the cump they see pixies in honey, dad and dying.  Mulgarath has learned how to kill pixies.  The goblins attack them, but between Mallory with a sword and the griffin, they chase them all away.  The other thing Mulgarath has learned from the field guide is that dragons mature quickly when fed cows milk.  He has several cows and baby dragons feeding on them.  The griffin and dragon battle.  Dragons are poisonous, and Simon is burned in touching the mother.  The griffin and the mother dragon have a terrible fight, and the dragon is winning.  Although not poisonous to the griffin, the mother is still deadly.  Some distracts the mother by stepping on, and squishing baby dragons.  While the mother is distracted, the griffin is able to kill it.  The griffin is wounded, but begins to feed on all the baby dragons, not leaving any.  The then enter Mulgarath's castle to rescue their mother, and discover their father is also there needing rescue.  Jared perceives something is wrong, and although Mallory and Simon run to their father, he holds back.  Their father is actually Mulgarath, a shape shifting ogre.  With Mallory and Simon in his grasp, he changes to an ogre and confronts Jared.  Jared gets the ogre talking, while Thimbletack quietly wraps chains around Simon and Mallory, as well as Mulgarath.  Mulgarath gets angry and throws them out the two he has out the window.  The chains hold and they don't fall.  Jared uses Mallory's sword to stab Mulgarath in the foot, and then pushes him out the window, the chain tripping him.  He changes his form to an animal, but Jared has the sword, so he changes into a bird.  Luckily Hogsquel, the hobgoblin  is with them.  He loves to eat birds, and he is very fast.
Our series of books ends with Arthur Spiderwick meeting his daughter, who has missed him since the elves took him hostage many years ago.  He has not aged, but his daughter Lucinda is an old woman. Arthur understands, if he does not want to stay with the elves, he can just dismount from the horse he is on, and he will change to dust.  He chooses this end.
This book had plenty of action, but also a sentimental ending.  I enjoyed it.

Book Review: The Ironwood Tree: Spiderwick Chronicle (4)

This book starts with a fencing tourney, and Mallory doing very well, even better than the captain on whom she has a crush.  However, during the match, Jared seas someone going through Mallory’s bags.  This is the shape shifting ogre.  Jared tries to get down the stuff, but the coach chases him away as the area is only for participants.  The ogre then changes into him, and gets him in lots of trouble.  He confronts himself with a knife he has in his pocket.  As others come, the ogre transforms into a small child, and Jared is caught threatening a child with a knife.  He is expelled, and his mother feels this is his rebelling at her recent divorce from his father.  In the disciplining process, Mallory disappears.  The twins figure she has been taken underground by the dwarves, but are themselves taken prisoner, with Mallory in a glass coffin asleep like sleeping beauty.  They escape, and rescue Mallory, but are not sure of the way out.  The dwarves are making weapons for Mugarath, as well as iron trees which they hope to use when the take over the world.  A rock hearing creature helps them discover the way out.  As they emerge from the tunnels, they come upon Mulgarath with a prisoner.  The dwarves deliver their weapons to Mugarath, who double crosses them and orders the goblins to kill them, which they do.

This book is more convoluted that some of the others.  There is action, but the underground stuff is about too far out.  Getting back to the evil of Mugarath and the goblins at the end gets the story back on track.

Book Review: The Seeing Stone: Spiderwick Chronicles (2)

Spiderwick Chronicles: The Seeing Stone  This second book of five of the Grace children, Mallory and the twins, Simon and Jared, may have been better called “The Spit of the Hobgoblin” because the seeing stone is one way the see the faeries, but you have to look through the stone, after the hobgoblin spits in your eye you have the seeing power permanently. 

This second adventure has more action than the first.  Jared is warned to get rid of the field guide he found in the first book, but he doesn’t do so.  The knowledge contained in the book would give an unfair advantage to whoever possesses it.  Mugarath, a shape shifting ogre wants the guide.  He sends a group of goblins to get it.  The haul off Simon, after first having gotten his cat.  Mallory and Jared take after them, with only one seeing stone between them.  Mallory has her fencing sword, which isn’t very good weapon as the point is blunted.  The first run into a troll, and barely escape her by going around, the then come upon the scene of the goblins, with Simon and other animals hanging in cages, while they are roasting another cat over the fire.  Hogsqueal is also in a cage, our hobgoblin.  He helps the Grace children for his own freedom.  They get Simon out of the cage, and are headed for a freedom when the goblins notice them.  Only the hobgoblin distracting them by eating their dinner allows them to escape.  They then lead the goblins past the troll (who makes an agreement to let them pass for more meaty flesh coming after) who takes care of them.  They also rescue a griffin who had been injured by the goblins, and Simon takes it upon himself to nurse it back to health.

Book Review: Lucinda's Secret: Spiderwick (3)

Lucinda’s Secret.  In this book the Grace siblings visit their great-great aunt Lucinda.  They visit her as they are trying to decide what to do with the field guide.  Lucinda relates how her father Arthur Spiderwick disappeared.  He left with the field guide and just disappeared.  However she shares in the secret of the fairies.  The reason she is in the hospital is she only eats fairie food, which she prefers to regular food.  As a result of this visit, the children decide to visit the elves.  They had found a map of the vicinity which showed the elf area.  It seems Arthur Spiderwick was going to visit them the day he disappeared.  The children also discover that they have lost the field guide, apparently the house brownie, Thimbletack stole it and has hidden it.  The elves insist on getting the field guide, and say they are going to keep Simon until they bring it, while letting the others go.  However Jared plays a trick and trades places with Simon, so they have to let him go.  Something someone said makes Jared think Arthur Spiderwick is still alive and with the elves.

Book Review: Spiderwick Chronicles: The Field Guide (1)

This book is written by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi.

This is the first of five books in which we meet the Grace children, Mallory, and her younger twin brothers Simon and Jared.  They have recently moved to their great aunts abandoned house (she is in the mental health hospital).  They house is in disrepair, and has many creeping noises.  They figure one is a squirrel in the walls, and they discover its nest, which is strange but the pull it out and put it in the trash.  Turns out the nest is not that of a squirrel but that of a Boggart/ Brownie.  It changes back and forth based on its mood.  Of course with its next destroyed it is mad, and takes out its anger on the children, tying Mallory’s head to her bed, making a big mess in the kitchen.  In the meantime, Jared discovers a book, a field guide of faerie creatures.  Using the guide he decides they need to do something to appease the Boggart.  They find his house stuff, and offer him a new house with the stuff inside.  SO the book ends with the Brownie meeting our three siblings, and with a warning.  They are not to keep the book, the field guide.

These stories have lots of action and excitement.  And portends that more is to come.  I am not sure why the book is divided into five parts, other than to make more money.

Book Review: Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles: The Nixie's Song

This is the start of a new trilogy exploring the world of faeries written by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black.  This book introduces the human characters Nick and his stepsister Jules who live in Florida.  Jules has read the Spiderwick books, and believes in faeries.  She forces her new brother to tag along with her to explore the woods for faeries.  She sends Nick on a hunt for a four-leaf clover.  He finds one, and with it in his possession he sees a Nixie, near death.  He rescues the Nixie, when he should have come in for dinner and is grounded from electronics.  However the Nixie is appreciative and gives Nick and Jules the ability to see faeries.
With this new found ability the Nixie send them on a mission to look for her sisters.  They were separated due to the construction of a new housing development managed by their father.  They find three of the Nixies, dead; and inadvertently find a giant.  The giant can breath fire if it eats a salamander.  This is what apparently happened to the Nixies.  The giant takes after them, and they lead it home where the song of the Nixie seems to but it in a trance.  The problem is the Nixie has to keep singing, without sleep as they figure out what to do.
They visit the authors at a book signing, who do not believe them.  However Jared, from Spiderwick Chronicles is there, and believes them enough to help.  He finds some of his father's letter to a gentleman who lives close to them in Florida.  They visit his shack, and discover some papers which show how to stop a giant.  While the giant is still in a trance, they are able to tie it up.  However they are horrified when they realize the trap is killing the giant.  The book ends with another character, Noseeum Jack, whose papers they stole.  Noseeum ends the giants life, and thinks he has recruited helpers to overcome the giants.  The giants are waking up after a 500 year hibernation.

Movie Review: ****^Spiderwick Chronicles

I Found Spiderwick Chronicles (2008) among our personal family DVDs and realized I hadn't watched it; although I did read the book sometime ago.  I think the movie is very true to the book, and one think I had difficulty understanding in the book was the manipulation of time, which was much more clear in the movie.  The ogres and Mulgarath, (Nick Nolte) are just despicable, and their green blood is gross.  Freddie Highmore plays a dual roll of twin brothers.  (I was confused at first until I looked up the casting.  Their sister is portrayed by Sarah Bolger.  Jared, one of the twins, finds a book written by his great-great uncle after the move into the Spiderwick mansion.  There is a warning placed on the book to not read it under threat of death.  He reads anyway, and sets off a series of events with trolls and Mulgarath wanting the book, and willing to kill to get it.  The children's mother (Mary-Louise Parker) doesn't believe in the beasts, and thinks it is just her son's anger coming out.  Her son is angry because dad has left the family.  Spiderwick is very well done.  It is exciting, but also has good story, and characters with interesting powers and motivations.