The Young Readers Challenge

The Spiderwick Chronicles, Book 2, The Seeing Stone

While I am aware that I have met the guidelines for the Young Readers Challenge, I find that I am drawn to children's books more than ever. So, I will continue to add to my list of completed reads.

My latest completion is "The Spiderwick Chronicles, Book 2, The Seeing Stone".

In this book The Grace Children, Mallory and twins Simon and Jared continue to explore the rickety, ramshackle house they have moved into that actually belonged to their grand-aunt. Simon isn't too concerned with the discovery of the secret library and the books by the patriarch Mr. Arthur Spiderwick concerning the existence of faeries, that is, until he goes missing! In the previous book, the children are introduced to a brownie named Thimbletack and in the second book, Thimbletack is responsible for helping Mallory and Jared find Simon who had been kidnapped by the goblins. Thimbletack gave Jared the seeing stone -- a stone with a hole in the middle of it that, when looked through, allowed Jared to see the goblins that were, otherwise, invisible to him.

It was a perilous effort finding Simon, encountering a troll and sprites and a band of goblins along the way. When they finally arrived at the goblin camp they found Simon trapped in a cage along with many cats, a goblin with green cat eyes and an injured griffin that they took home to nurse when the whole ordeal was over. A battle ensued in which Mallory had to make use of her fencing sword but, at the end of the day, the children made it back to their home where their mother was very concerned about their disappearance -- it was, after all, 1 a.m.

These books are well written, although a bit gross in areas. However, they are drawing me in and wanting me to read the next installment. The illustrations are great and I am enjoying them. I would recommend them to the older ages in the group and I would try to find them in discount stores or second hand bookstores because they are a little pricey at the big name stores -- especially since they can be read in about an hour.