The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Field Guide is the first book in the Spiderwick Chronicles series, a popular series of illustrated children's fantasy books written by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black. The books are designed for school age and middle school age children. Like the A Series of Unfortunate Events series, volumes of this book are often hardbound and made to look like even older hardbound books. Pen and ink drawings appear throughout the books.
The story takes place in New England, United States. Nine-year-old twins Simon and Jared and their older sister Mallory have moved to the decrepit Spiderwick Estate. They discover a field guide to Faeries, and quickly realize that the estate is infested with them. Some of the faeries are funny and cute; many more of them are pesky or downright malicious.
The first book introduces you to the characters of the story. It starts with Jared, Simon and Mallory Grace moving into their uncle Arthur's old house.
At first, Jared hears scratching in the walls, but thinks it's a squirrel. Later that night he hears the scratching again. Jared, Simon and Mallory go downstairs into the kitchen to investigate. Mallory breaks out a chunk in the wall and they find the nest of a strange creature. Then they hear the scratching move upstairs, and Jared goes up in a dumb waiter to find out more. He finds himself in a room with no door. It is a study. On the wall is a portrait of Arthur Spiderwick, his uncle. Just then he finds a note on a table saying:
In a man's torso you will find
My secret to all mankind
If false and true can be the same
You will soon know of my fame
Up and up again
Good luck dear friend
Next morning, Jared sees that Mallory's hair has been tied to her bedstead. His mother blames Jared, even though he is innocent. While his mother unties Mallory, Jared decides to figure out the mysterious note.
He climbs up to a room at the very top of the house and finds a chest. In a secret compartment inside it, there is a package. Jared unwraps it to find a book called "Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You". It is full of information on faeries.
Jared discovers that the scratching and the incident with Mallory's hair was caused by a boggart, or a brownie turned bad. He attempts to convince his mother that he is innocent, but gets into even more trouble.
He then realises that the boggart is angry because he messed up the creature's nest. He gathers up all the lost things from the nest and puts them in a bird house, and a note saying sorry.
Several days later while the Jared, Simon and Mallory are in Uncle Arthur's study, a small man with a hat on appeared. The little man is in fact the boggart that had been causing them all the trouble, and in later novels, we find out that his name is Thimbletack. He commands them to throw away the Field Guide or suffer a terrible fate.
The book ends by saying: "And worst of all, they were only at the beginning."
