The Spiderwick Chronicles Book 4 – The Ironwood Tree | Book Review

Children’s books are one of the favourite genres for us here at Thinkerviews. We are always looking for books filled with adventure, enterprise and magic that makes childhood such a fascinating phase of life. We have reviewed a fair few series designed for young readers and shared our reviews on those here at Thinkerviews platforms.

• The Brightstorm Series by Vashti Hardy
• Friday Barnes Book Series by R.A. Spratt
• The Pandava series featuring Aru Shah by Roshani Chokshi

We added the Spiderwick Chronicles series to our reading list a while ago. Created by authors Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, these series has captured the readers with its tales of fairy land creatures inhabiting a derelict estate and the trio of children who go looking for them.

First published in 2003, the series has grown over time and been loved by readers old and young, inspiring a TV adaptation by the same name that’s hit the screens lately. We have shared our reviews on the previous books of the series here:

The Spiderwick Chronicles Book 1 – The Field Guide

The Spiderwick Chronicles Book 2 – The Seeing Stone

The Spiderwick Chronicles Book 3 – Lucinda’s Secret

So let’s continue through the series with this review for the fourth book called The Ironwood Tree.

Book Cover:

Let us take a look at the cover page of this book.

We found the lovely hard back copies of the series, in which the coverpage of this fourth book  shows four children – yes, who is the new addition? – looking lost and scared in a gloomy forest surrounded by the magical creatures who don’t look very friendly…

The fonts used on the coverpage will remind of classical wrought iron casting work and ancient tapestries. The authors’ names are shown in flying leaves….

Inside, this edition is filled with beautiful illustrations, almost on every page, making a very attractive read for young readers. A classic cover page that would be more appealing to the fans of the series looking for a collector’s edition.

We have featured another edition above, which is more in line with the tale of the enchanted sleeping beauty theme.

Storyline:

It has been a couple of weeks since the Grace children escaped the forest elves. The day starts normally enough with everyone piling up in their car to go witness Mallory while she takes part in the fencing event at their school.

But while Mallory is fighting off opponents as well as adolescent pangs of attraction for her team captain, Jared notices another girl rooting through his sister’s bag. Before he can get there, he sees that Simon is doing the stealing. And when he actually encounters the thief, he encounters another Jared….

So, the penny drops. That it must be some kind of faerie looking for the field guide. Remembering that faeries don’t like iron, Jared gets his pocketknife out. But then the vice principal arrives and Jared is in a world of trouble.

While the twins listen to their mother crying on the phone to their father, they also discover that Mallory has disappeared. The only clue seems to point to an abandoned quarry across from the school. And so armed with just a flashlight and their backpack, Simon and Jared go looking for their sister.

And arrive in the underground world of dwarves. These craftsmen have built themselves trees from metal called ironwood tree and hope to fill the earth with the forests of them. They have encased Mallory in a glass cage and put Simon and Jared in another cage.

All three children are now trapped in this world filled with beautiful metallic beings. As usual, they are able to think on their feet and escape their prison, but what they witness above the ground makes them even more afraid than ever. It looks like the war has just begun over a book called Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You.

Views and Reviews:

This fourth book in the Spiderwick Chronicles takes the readers and the characters to meet yet another set of faeries and a step closer to the conflict that has been brewing for many years. We do see a glimpse of what normal life could be for the Grace family in their new hometown, on a day that has nothing more exciting planned than a fencing contest. The author shows us the arena through a younger child’s eyes:

A rectangular pad was spread out on the floor with lines taped on it. Mallory called it piste, but Jared thought it looks like a long, black mat. Behind it was a folding table where the scoreboard sat, its large, colored buttons making it look like a game. The director was fiddling with the wires, connecting them to a foil and testing the force needed to make the buzzer sound and the lights flash.

This time, the authors take us through the underground world inhibited by the dwarves under the unused quarry. The quarry is also part of the maps of the Spiderwick Estate and the magical area around it, so the children are intrigued by its appearance, especially as its located right across from their school.

The rock had been mined jaggedly; chunks of stone stuck out like ledges along the nearly thirty-foot drop to the uneven valley below. Scrabbly bits of grass grew along the walls from thick veins of dirt.

There is a small riddle that gets the twins through the door to this place where beautifully crafted metal makes the world that looks even better than the real world. However, the dwarves who live here are just as interesting in appearance:

Growing fungi covered the walls in patches, illuminating the faces of three small men with skin as gray as stone. Their clothes were drab and sewn from rough fabrics, but their silver bracelets, crafted  in the shape of serpents, were so intricate that they seemed to slither around the men’s thin arms, their collars were woven with golden threads beaten so fine that they might have been cloth; and their jeweled rings were so lovely that each of their dirty fingers gleamed.

They have made dwellings and cages, birds and animals, all made of precious metals and gemstones. Their ambition is to leave this underground world and fill up the world above with their craft once the natural world has been destroyed. In their vision there will be forests made of the trees that give the book its name:

A massive tree with thick trunk reaching up until it was lost in shadows, branches forming a canopy above. Amazing how one metal had been forged as rough as bark and twisted into branches while another was as delicate as filigree. Each silver leaf was unique, veined and curled like a real one.

And so we see the fractions forming in the magical world. There are the peace loving faeries, the elves who fear human cruelty and destruction and the goblins who will be happy to destroy humans and other magical creatures to rule over everything…

This book starts to slowly build the momentum before the final conflict and also extend the theme of the delicate balance required for humans to exist in a sustainable way on this planet and let other species live in their homes….

Although we have dwarves and more to meet, my favorite faerie from the book is the Knocker…

 A small, pale figure with huge, luminous eyes that shone in the gloom. On its forehead, two long whiskers quivered. A nodder or a banger, they live in the mines and warn miners of collapses and stuff. They speak to stones.

These stories have also been turned into a delightful TV adaptation and are available to stream on: The Roku Channel.

Summary:

An enjoyable segment in the series of adventures featuring three adorable children as they learn about the magical world around their new home…

ThinkerViews Rating:

Around 7.5 stars out of 10.

Quick Purchase Links:

• Buy - The Ironwood Tree by Tony DeTerlizzi, Holly Black - Paperback - Amazon IN
• Buy - The Ironwood Tree by Tony DeTerlizzi, Holly Black - Paperback - Amazon US

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