Favorite Author Fridays - Holly Black

Sorry I skipped last week- it was busy! Anyway today's author is Holly Black.



I decided to talk about her since Nate and I went to see the Spiderwick Chronicles movie last night. I'll be honest, I didn't love it. I don't usually love movies based on books I've read or actually even reading books I've seen the movies of first. This movie left out a lot of the intro stuff that makes you love the characters. Even Mary Louise Parker couldn't save it for me and I love her in a not quite platonic way. I just didn't care about the family and wasn't even very caught up in the action. Sad for me. :(

However I did really like the books. I loved the style of them (similar to Series of Unfortunate Events) where you have small hardbound children's books that are just a little nicer (and more likely to hold up) than the average children's book. I have also long been a fan of her older young adult fiction. I really think that is really her strength: gritty modern realistic fantasy. She excels at showing teenagers as they quite often are, well-intentioned but making stupid choices. They are however very questionable. She did not choose to write about the average, mostly boring, lives of the teens you probably know and love. She chose to write about teens in bad situations making really dumb choices and encountering magic in a modern environment. If you have big concerns about the material you allow your young adults to read these are probably not the books for you.

But I do love them. I love her realistic characters and her portrayal of modern life meeting magic. She does it beautifully. And I especially love that her protagonist are not always right and good. They are often wrong and stupid- very much like us.

Here's her Bibliography. Ones in red are ones I have read and recommend.

The Modern Faerie Tales

• Tithe : A Modern Faerie Tale (2002)

• Valiant : A Modern Tale of Faerie (2005)

• Ironside : A Modern Faery's Tale (2007)

The Spiderwick Chronicles

• The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Field Guide (2003)

• The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Seeing Stone (2003)

• The Spiderwick Chronicles: Lucinda's Secret (2003)

• The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Ironwood Tree (2004)

• The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Wrath of Mulgarath (2004)

• Arthur Spiderwick's Notebook of Fantastical Observations (2005)

• Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You (2005)

• The Spiderwick Chronicles: Care and Feeding of Sprites (2006)

• The Nixie's Song: Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles (2007)