Welcome to Everyone is Talking About, a feature on the Johnson Elementary School Learning Leopard Library blog that features books and series that students just can’t stop talking about! Check out our Everyone is Talking About posts to learn more about some of the most commonly checked-out, requested, and reviewed books in the Learning Leopard Library.

This week, everyone is talking about The Spiderwick Chronicles. This fiction series isn’t new to our library, but it’s popularity has skyrocketed recently – probably related to Johnson students’ love of all things creepy and scary! Created by children’s author Tony DiTerlizzi, The Spiderwick Chronicles follows the three siblings of the Grace family; twins Simon and Jared and older sister Mallory. In the beginning of the series’ first book, The Field Guide, The Grace kids live a pretty normal life until their family moves into Spiderwick Estate. Not long after moving into the sprawling home, the children find their way up into the big, empty, spooky attic (with no doors leading into the rest of the house. Eek!) and find a cryptic hand-written text called “Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You”. This ancient book piques the siblings’ curiousity, and tempts them to explore and delve even farther into the magical world hidden inside of the Spiderwick Estate. Simon, Jared, and Mallory discover way more than they bargained for in their new home, and soon they realize that there is much more to the world than they ever imagined.

The Field Guide was published in 2003, and quickly made its way to the top of the New York Times Bestseller List. The series includes four more books, and also leads to Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles, another accompanying series by DiTerlizzi that serves as a sort of “spinoff” from the original. The books are so popular that in 2008, the series was developed into a movie by Paramount Pictures.

Recently, Johnson student Carver discovered The Spiderwick Chronicles, and he’s totally hooked. “I love in the first book, when the family moved into the old house and went up into the abandoned attic,” he said. “Then they found the book and started looking for clues. There’s lots of mystery.” Carver is on the second book of the series, and says that he can’t wait to read the rest.

When I asked Carver whether he would recommend this book to a friend, he immediately answered that he would. “Yes! The books are so interesting, and I love how they help you find stuff out.” And Carver has recommended the books to his friends – the first book of the series currently has a long line of students waiting for it, and the title is in line to be our next book on the Spotlight board!

Carver says that his favorite part of The Field Guide was when siblings Simon and Jared woke up to find Mallory’s braids had been tied to her bedpost. He laughed, “It was so funny because they thought that Jared did it, he got blamed for all of the trouble!” Although he says he would never want that to happen to his sister, he enjoyed it in the book 😉

If he had to describe the first book of The Spiderwick Chronicles in one word, Carver says that he would use the word exciting. And mystery!

If you’d like to learn more about author Tony DiTerlizzi and The Spiderwick Chronicles, you can visit DiTerlizzi’s website here. If you’re curious about the movie that was made from the best-selling series, you can find it’s Internet Movie Database webpage here. And if you’d like to read The Spiderwick Chronicles, you can find the whole series in the Johnson Elementary School Library fiction section, under the call number F DIT. A special thank you goes to Carver for his help!