WATCHED:

Waters, M. (Director). (2008). Spiderwick chronicles [Motion picture]. United States: Paramount/Nickelodeon.

[Don't normally list here the movies that I watch (an idea for ANOTHER blog?) but this one is children's librarian related and was surprisingly good - like, kinda really enjoyable. From my recollection of the books, the film did a darn good job of staying close to the events in the books (not super hard to do since the books are relatively short), and the visual effects were almost TOO good - some of the characters were kinda creepy-real looking. Violent - should we really see the kids deep bite wounds and watch slices appear on their flesh when they're clawed at? - and I was a bit surprised by some of the language - at one point, one of the boys says, "What the HELL??" Really enjoyed this one - much more than I thought that I would. I kinda wish now that I'd gotten to see it on an IMAX screen.]




STARTED & FINISHED:

DiTerlizzi, Tony, and Black, Holly. (2008). Beyond the Spiderwick chronicles: The Nixie's song. New York: Simon & Schuster.

[Continues with some of the Spiderwick creatures. There are new kids in this one, but the old ones are reference, and one of the boys joins the action - and, most surprising of all, the "fourth wall" is broken and the book takes a post-modern turn by having the kids go to a book signing by the actual authors of the books - essentially, the author and illustrator (Black and DiTerlizzi) appear in their own book. This one moves the action to Florida swamps and involves fairies and giants. To be honest I'm writing this a few weeks after I read it... and it was such a slight read that I kinda don't remember what actually happened in it...]

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