Illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi, left, and writer Holly Black

Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi, writer and illustrator of The Spiderwick Chronicles -- five children's books about three kids who encounter fairies, brownies, sprites, goblins and other, more fancifully named fantasy creatures when they move with their mother into a dilapidated Victorian house -- are overwhelmed at seeing how a movie released this week brings their creations to life.

"Even though I've imagined these characters many times and I've seen Tony's drawings of them, it is still incredibly strange to see people moving around and acting like them," Black said from New York, where she and DiTerlizzi attended the premiere of The Spiderwick Chronicles recently.

"To see Jared (one of the nine-year-old identical twins in the novels' Grace family) come to life is very surreal." Because the Spiderwick books open the door on a fantasy world similar to Mary Norton's realm containing tiny below-stairs creatures called Borrowers, with intimations of C.S. Lewis's Narnia and even of J.R.R. Tolkien's wilder imaginings, the movie version -- directed by Mark Waters (Freaky Friday, Mean Girls) -- promises high production values and lots of Industrial Light & Magic . . .

Read the entire article at the Galgary Herald . . .