Jo's On Nail Detail

So far all the progress on the new house has been cleaning up the big pile o' crap in the front yard. In addition to the pile of big stuff there are also nails scattered all over the yard. I decided to put Jo to work picking those up and I offered to pay her a nickel a nail. Silly me! I should have looked closer and taken a guess as to how many nails are actually there. So far she has picked up 416 nails. 416! That's $20.80 so far and there are still a LOT of nails lying around out there.
And here's the best part. . . guess what she bought with her money? A book. And not just any book. It's brand new and it's called The Chronicles of Spiderwick.We've already read all five of the regular Spiderwick books (we haven't read the new one yet) and Jo has listened to the audio recordings several times. She also has the Field Guide which she PORES over. As soon as she saw this new book in the store she was entranced. It's a Dragonology-style companion to the world of the Spiderwick Chronicles with pull-out maps and lots of little pockets with special treasures in them. She loves every page.
These books are just fabulous. The writing is terrific - short, action-packed chapters that are great for reading aloud a chapter (or more) a night. The books are just scary enough - lives are actually at stake which makes for an edgier read than what Jo is used to - but not scary enough to induce nightmares. She does, however, keep the last book in the series turned face-down because the cover is very scary. Which brings me to the art. Gorgeous! Every bit of the package is perfect. Jo especially loves that the interior art has captions - which she likes to read to me. Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi are a perfect team.
As far as extras go - the website is terrific with a great printable trivia game. I'm also looking forward to the movie. I'm a little nervous that it might be too scary to see the creepy monsters on the huge big screen, but Jo is so in love with these books that we will probably risk it.
My favorite part? Ever since we read the books, Jo occasionally comes up and whispers in my ear, "Click clack, watch your back!" And she loves the silly insults that Hogsqueal throws out. Candy butt? Awesome!