©Tony DiTerlizzi
The Spiderwick Chronicles tells the tale of the Grace family as they adapt to a new life and a new reality. Nine-year-old twins Jared and Simon and their thirteen-year-old sister Mallory move into the Victorian-style Spiderwick Estate with their mother as their parents undergo a separation. The children quickly discover there is more to the house than meets the eye when they uncover a secret library, a house brownie named Thimbletack, and a book, Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You, which contains detailed information on all sorts of creatures that reside within the Invisible World. Through the five books in The Spiderwick Chronicles series — The Field Guide (2003), The Seeing Stone (2003), Lucinda’s Secret (2003), The Ironwood Tree (2004), and The Wrath of Mulgarath (2004) — the Grace children encounter hungry goblins, a wounded griffin, a hobgoblin named Hogsqueal, distrustful elves, and an evil ogre named Mulgarath, before finally meeting the author of The Field Guide, Arthur Spiderwick.
The Spiderwick Chronicles was an astounding success with children, parents, and teachers alike. The series topped the New York Times bestseller list and to date has sold over fifteen million copies and been translated into thirty languages. The triumph of the series spawned a handful of spin-off publications, including Arthur Spiderwick’s Notebook for Fantastical Observations (2005), Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You (2005), The Spiderwick Chronicles: Care and Feeding of Sprites (2006), and the Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles series (2007), in addition to a feature film and video game.
