Readers who are too young to read Harry Potter independently will find these have just the right amount of menace laced with...
Unexplained things are happening in the eerie Victorian heap that is new home to the Grace family.
Rustlings in the decrepit walls lead the three children, to discover and destroy the nest of a Brownie and to locate, in Arthur Spiderwick’s secret library, his Field Guide to the Fantastical World, which details the habits of faeries. The infuriated Brownie exacts retribution in hateful ways: knotting Mallory’s long hair to her headboard and freezing animal-loving Simon’s tadpoles into ice cubes. The children mollify the Brownie by building him another home, but against his warnings that harm will result, keep the Field Guide. Book 2 (The Seeing Stone, 0-689-95937-6) steps up the peril: the unheeded warnings lead to Simon’s kidnapping by a roving gang of goblins. His siblings gain The Sight by means of a small stone lens (and efficacious goblin spit rubbed into the eyes) and succeed in rescuing him. Cleverly marketed as too dangerous to read, handsomely designed, and extravagantly illustrated this packs quite a punch.
Readers who are too young to read Harry Potter independently will find these have just the right amount of menace laced with appealing humor and are blessed with crisp pacing and, of course, DiTerlizzi’s enticingly Gothic illustrations. (Fiction. 7-11)Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85936-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2003
SEEN & HEARD
Willa, nine, narrates events of a post-divorce summer in this poorly edited first novel. Mama uses settlement money for acreage in the country, and they renovate an old trailer. When she takes a job at the used bookstore, Mama trades Willa’s chore duty for the TLC of elderly neighbor Hazel. As their rustic routines develop, Hazel spins tales of the tiny, vaguely matriarchal Nutfolk. Her details echo Willa’s own previous sightings of a tree-stump settlement and shimmering fairy auras. Enlisting the help of a neighbor boy, Willa tries to prove that the Nutfolk exist. Ullman has not yet mastered unreliable narration, yielding at times to authorial insight and too many adverbs. “I suspected that the main thing Vincent Meeker and I had in common was the struggle to get over our sorrows.” Insensitivities crop up, too. Hazel describes Nutfolk’s fancier clothing as having “a hint of American Indian in the styling,” and the fairies possess a “golden brown complexion with tilted, almond eyes.” Human problems and solutions overwhelm the tenuous fairy lore, despite some sweet imagery and deft characterization. A more rigorous edit might have turned the occasional glimmers into a steady glow. (Fiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-073614-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2006
Downer should have left her likable 12-year-old protagonist alone rather than dragging her through this mediocre sequel. Having met wizards and dragons last summer, Theodora has difficulty fitting back into regular life. When her father’s called to a tiny Scottish island to identify a mysterious scale, Theodora goes along. Did the scale fall off a dragon? Who’s the creepy vagabond? Who’s evil? A seephole threatens to open and suck the island into the unpleasant realm of Never-Was. Theodora fulfills her destiny by claiming magical powers inherited from her long-dead mother and riding a dragon into Never-Was. Characters are sparkly and appealing, the plot pleasing. However, wizards’ spells are facile, as are Theodora’s achievements (training a biddable fire; saving the island). Never-Was is too minimally explored, while many things are unnecessarily spelled out. Harmless, but not especially gripping. (Fantasy. 8-11)
Pub Date: July 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-689-85571-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2006
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