Ann Arbor is popular for many things: for being a university town, Ann Arbor Art Fair and of course for the fairy doors. I first learned about the fairy doors in 2005 and promptly created a mini-fieldtrip with my daughters to see ALL of them. We had a blast driving around town with mini journals to sketch and write about the each fairy door. Since then, we have visited each new fairy door that pops up around our cool town. (Note: We still need to visit the one at Google). Ann Arbor Fairy doors have gotten a lot of press, they were even mentioned on NPR!

A fairy door showed up in our house a couple of years ago and its occupant has been blamed credited with many unexplained happenings around the house like writing on the walls, leaving a mess, and missing boots. Our fairy definitely earned its name - Mischief. We have had many discussions about who Mischief is (She’s a girl, Mom!) and what she might look like. But after reading The Spiderwick Chronicles by Toni DiTerlizzi and Holly Black our imaginations have exploded as to what Mischief may be like.

The Spiderwick Chronicles follow the Grace children, thirteen year old sister Mallory, and nine year old twin brothers Jared and Simon. The children along with their mother move from New York into their Aunt Lucinda’s sorely neglected house on the Spiderwick country estate. The state of the house does not help the fact that the reason they had to move was because their mom and dad had divorced. But the Grace children soon find out the old house holds many secrets and many adventures unfold in the five part series.

About.com's Children's Books' blogger Elizabeth Kennedy wrote:

“According to a letter from co-author Holly Black that appears at the beginning of each of The Spiderwick Chronicles series, it all started when she and Tony DiTerlizzi were at a bookstore book signing and were given a letter that had been left for them. The letter was from the Grace children, and it mentioned a book that ‘tells people how to identify faeries and how to protect themselves.’ The letter went on to say, ‘We just want people to know about this. The stuff that has happened to us could happen to anyone.’ A few days later, according to Black, she and DiTerlizzi met the Grace children, and the story the children told them became The Spiderwick Chronicles.”

Tony DiTerlizzi’s detailed illustrations in the series and his Audibon-styled drawings in Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide To The Fantastical World Around You, the very field guide the Grace children use in the story, inspired a classroom project for me. I read The Spiderwick Chronicles series aloud to the class as an enrichment activity to support a Living Things science unit. In this science unit, we studied the habitats of various living things and how living things have physical adaptations that help them be successful in their environments. As a class we discussed how the fairy critters in the books thrived in their environments (like in the walls of the house or at the city dump) and what adaptations made them successful in those habitats (like goblins having broken glass for teeth - ugh!) As I read the stories aloud, I had the student draw a map of their neighborhood (like all the books include) and create a fairy critter that may live in one of the places on their map. Of course descriptions of its' habitat was a later writing assignment and a detailed illustration of their fairy critter with labeled adaptations was also required (including at least 3 colors - the colors black and white did not count! Because I’m mean and rotten that way). The final products were very impressive and memorable for me and the students.

I think children will love to get a glimpse of what the fairy world may be like in our town of Ann Arbor and The Spiderwick Chronicles offers that opportunity. This book is aimed at third to sixth grade readers, but I think if you are a fan of the Ann Arbor Fairy Doors you will enjoy reading The Spiderwick Chronicles.

Note: The authors are touring now. If you cannot make any of the dates, check out the Borders Live at 01 video of the Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi when they visited Ann Arbor a few years ago.

book photos: promo.simonandschuster.com/Spiderwick/