The Seeing Stone by Tony DiTerlizzi, Holly Black on May 1, 2003
Genres: Juvenile Fiction / Action & Adventure / General, Juvenile Fiction / Fantasy & Magic, Juvenile Fiction / Horror
Pages: 108
Format: Hardcover
Source: Half Price Books
Buy on Amazon/Buy on Barnes & Noble
Goodreads
Celebrate the 20th anniversary of the international bestselling Spiderwick Chronicles with the second instalment in the adventures of the Grace children.
Thanks to the mysterious field guide left behind by their long-lost great-great-uncle, Arthur Spiderwick, life for the Grace kids - Jared, Simon and Mallory - is beyond weird. When Simon goes missing, Jared is certain creatures from the faerie world have something to do with it. Mallory is not convinced. That is, until she and Jared contend with a band of menacing goblins. Simon is clearly in danger, and it's up to Mallory and Jared to save him before it's too late.
I have owned the first five books in “The Spiderwick Chronicles” for several years and always wanted to get around to reading them, but like a lot of stuff I kept putting off reading the five books even though I knew they would be easy reads. I recently started a “read my book shelves” challenge in my mind and it has helped me to start reading my books. I decided to read these 5 books because it would allow my brain to start feeling like I was accomplishing reading and sometimes that is what we have to do as readers when we have lapsed. We have to jump start our reading back up and that is why I chose to read this series.
I decided the next day after finishing “The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Field Guide” to continue on with the series immediately. I read the next 2 books all in the same day because I enjoyed them that much. They are still not the greatest books ever written, but again books don’t have to be the next high brow literature read. They can just be something we read for fun and I definitely read this next book for fun!
“The Seeing Stone” doesn’t do much in moving any overwhelming plot forward. By the end of the book even I would argue that the item mentioned in the title does not even matter, but you will have to read to find out why. This didn’t seem to matter, as I kept reading. I wanted to see what was going to happen to the Grace Children on the next page. It helps that these are such fast reads. You don’t have to spend a great deal of time analyzing what is happening because the writing is direct in what is occurring to our characters. There is not a lot of nuanced interpretations needed here. It is just straight-forward and direct. We do understand slightly that our main character, Jared, is having some issues with anger. This isn’t something that overwhelms the plot though and we are able to just stay in the plot of what is happening in the faerie stuff here.
I enjoyed aspects of this book a bit better than the previous one, if I was comparing. This one feels like it is moving us forward. I found it interesting to get introduced to other characters, but still not introduced to the idea of who the ultimate villain is in the entire series and we are already down to only 3 books left after this. This is one reason why I couldn’t give this book an increased rating, it doesn’t feel like it is part of a cohesive series to me. It doesn’t feel like there are stakes at all in a large chunk of the two books, even though there is action. We don’t know what is happening, why, and it feels like too much is not being told. I just expect a bit more from my reading, but I am an adult and recognize that these are written for children. That is why this is still sitting on the 3 rating marking instead of at 2.
I would still recommend this series and this book specifically to individuals wanting a fast-paced book that is just solid entertainment to read. It isn’t going to be something you probably go around telling all your friends about, but you will at least go “you know I enjoyed that” and that is all we can ask for in our reading sometimes. Thanks Tony and Holly for writing a solid second book that kept me interested in the next book.
There are five books in the initial series of “The Spiderwick Chronicles”, but a few years later Tony and Holly got back together to write three more books that are called “Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles” which I have yet to read. I plan on buying these before too much longer so that I can say I have read most of what they have published for this world.
Leave a Reply