By Holly Black, Tony DiTerlizzi
The first Spiderwick book: three children move into a crumbling old house, and Jared finds a field guide that proves the faeries in the walls are real, and not all of them are friendly.
After their parents split up, twins Jared and Simon and their big sister Mallory move with their mom into their great-great-aunt's run-down estate. From the first night the house feels wrong. Something in the walls leaves foul little messes, ties Mallory's hair to her headboard while she sleeps, and hides threats in the kitchen. Tucked away in the house Jared finds Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World, an old book that says the creature causing all the trouble is a real house brownie, one who turns spiteful the moment he's crossed. The chapters are short, there's an ink drawing on nearly every spread, and the whole thing reads fast and ends on a hook straight into book two.
This is the gentlest kind of creepy: an eerie house and a mean little faery, with all the atmosphere and none of the real dread that comes later on this shelf. For a child who wants to feel spooked without anything that follows them to bed, it's close to perfect, and the short illustrated chapters make it an easy page-turner for a reader who usually stalls out. Best of all, if it clicks there are four more slim books waiting, so a hooked child has somewhere to run.