The Field Guide by Tony DiTerlizzi -> Starting February 4th, 2022

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It all starts when Jared Grace finds their great uncle's book, 'Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastic World Around You' and the Grace kids realize that they are not alone in their new house. Now the kids want to tell their story but the faeries will do everything they can to stop them

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Ch 4 (view spoiler)[ Poor Mallory, her hair was cut off! The messages are pretty creepy and whatever is writing them seems bad.

My audiobook is narrated by the great Mark Hamill and I'm so happy (hide spoiler)]

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Also, apparently my audiobook is 1 and 2 combined. These books are super short!

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Ch 5 (view spoiler)[ Ooh fairies! That makes sense why these creatures are so naughty.

If my last name was Spiderwick, you bet I'd be keeping that (hide spoiler)]

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Ch 6 (view spoiler)[ I hope Jared can prove that it's not him doing these things and get the fairy to stop breaking everything. I'd be so mad if my kitchen was trashed like that (hide spoiler)]

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Ch 7/End (view spoiler)[ Glad the mice are okay and Jared's siblings know that he wasn't doing all the bad stuff.
I wonder who the little man was talking about. Other fae that are worse? (hide spoiler)]

[Celia]

I read this series forever ago and am returning to the first one (a thrift shop copy) to make sure it still holds up 20 years after publication and there's no major red flags, racism, etc.

25% (view spoiler)[Okay, I'd forgotten about the illustrations in this one but honestly I love them, they add so much and the captions are an interesting way of foreshadowing, considering most of them are taken from the text. It works out really well. (hide spoiler)]

55% (view spoiler)[So far, no red flags but I can see how, for a young kid, it would be kind of a slow start. I mean, I read those 55 pages in ten minutes, but it's still halfway through the book when we actually get to the action, and if I recall (from 15 years ago), the sequels have a lot more actual fantasy stuff, where as this one really just sets the scene. This one might be hard for a kid to pick up with little background information, and also might be hard if they have high expectations for fantasy and fairies right from the beginning. (hide spoiler)]

[Celia]

75% (view spoiler)[I really like the way Jared sets out to prove things. Although it's a bit too much description instead of showing what happened in the past before they came to the house, you can see from the story that he is trying to make up for past mistakes. (hide spoiler)]

FINISHED (view spoiler)[I can't remember if I ever reread this after the first time in second grade. I think I moved pretty quickly to Harry Potter after this, but it's definitely worth a revisit. At some point I'll at least want to get the second one to check, again, if there are any red flags or things that don't hold up well 20 years later, when they get into the actual world of faeries, but for now this is definitely one to keep in mind for my future classroom. (hide spoiler)]