Sometimes when things go wrong and we feel that nothing could possibly get any worse, an unexpected surprise comes along to brighten our lives. This is one of the underlying themes of The Spiderwick Chronicles, a wonderful series written by Holly Black and illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi.
The first book introduces us to three siblings, Jared, Simon, their sister Mallory, and their mum. When the story starts, the family has had one major thing go wrong in their lives. The dad, who has recently gone, has left behind him unresolved issues and a lot of heartache. Each of the children deal with this pain in a slightly different way.
Now, you think about a time that you felt everything was going wrong.
How did you deal with it? Did you get angry? Did you talk about it or keep it to yourself?
Which character from this story do you relate with the most? Would your reaction to heartache be more like Jared's, Mallory's or Simon's?
When the story starts out, we see that Jared deals with the sadness of his dad leaving by getting into fights at school. Simon, Jared's twin brother, deals with his sadness by trying to ignore it. He focuses all of his energy on learning about animals. Mallory becomes overwhelmed with improving her fencing skills. All of them, in their own way, are trying to hide their feelings.