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    A Giant Problem
    A Giant Problem
    A Giant Problem
    Ebook144 pages1 hour

    A Giant Problem

    By Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Talk about out of the frying pan, into the fire! I was pretty sure that my freaky stepsister and that freaky field guide of hers would ruin my life. But now it looks like they're going to ruin all of Florida, too! Okay, maybe that's not fair. Maybe all these stupid giants would be waking up anyway, but if it wasn't for her and that book, I'd be home playing video games and this would be someone else's giant problem!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
    Release dateSep 8, 2009
    ISBN9781442403581
    Author

    Tony DiTerlizzi

    #1 New York Times bestselling author and illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi has been creating children’s books for over twenty years. From fanciful picture books like The Spider & the Fly to chapter book series like the Search for WondLa, DiTerlizzi imbues his stories with a rich imagination. With Holly Black, he created the middle grade series the Spiderwick Chronicles, which has sold 20 million copies, been adapted into a feature film, and been translated in over thirty countries. The Norman Rockwell Museum’s exhibition “Never Abandon Imagination” featured artwork from the beginning of DiTerlizzi’s career as a contributing artist for Dungeons & Dragons and broke attendance records. He has been featured in Time magazine and USA TODAY and on CNN, PBS, NPR, the BBC, and the Today show.

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    Reviews for A Giant Problem

    4/5

    115 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      For some reason I'm not getting into this new series as much as the first one. Maybe I'm still having an issue with the set up of these tales. The main stars of the first series make a surprise appearance at the end pointing to what could potentially be quite the ruckus for the third and final book. I'll just have to wait and see!
    • 5/5
      Continuing on from the first book in the trilogy, this book involves the problem of giants in the area. More people learn about the secret world around them and help to find a way to save their town.
    • 4/5
      This is the second book in the follow-up to the Spiderwick Chronicles; Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles. I liked it better than the first book. I began to emphathize with the characters a bit more. It was much more interesting than the first book. Unlike the first book, this book left the story in a decent place. The main point of the book is wrapped up, yet there is a little catch at the end that leads you to the third book. The book is well-written and the drawings are again excellent. Still it is a very short book. I am not sure why these are split up into such short stories, maybe it's to make them more approacable to children?In this book Nick and Laurie try to tackle the Giant problem in the area. With the help of Noseeum Jack can they rid the area of the giant problem before the whole area goes up in flames?A pretty good book. I am looking forward to the last book in the trilogy. The way things are coming together that should be the best of the series.
    • 4/5
      I am enchanted with the Spiderwick books. This second book in the Beyond Spiderwick trilogy continues the whimsy and fun. Nick and Laurie are still adjusting to life with faeries. They haven't found Taloa's nixie sisters, and they're taking lessons from Jack on how to kill giants, and Nick isn't liking any of it. He wishes he had never seen the field guide; he wishes it was someone else's problem. Unfortunately, the problem is only going to worsen, as every giant is waking up all over Florida. Nick feels hopeless while Laurie is optimistic, but they both agree that they can't do it on their own. Deciding who to tell is a challenge - clearly not their parents, whose fights are escalating. When Laurie tells Jules in a sneaky fashion, Nick is irate, but at least now they're not alone. The three Vargas children have to figure out how to work with unfriendly mermaids, handle their parent's anger, and stop an army of giants from destroying their homes.These fantasies where they blend the fantastic into a real world setting are some of my favorites. Much like the Harry Potter books, both Spiderwick series center on regular children who discover that there is much more to their world than they originally suspected. The field guide allows them to see a universe others don't: a place where mermaids threaten surfers, rumbling thunder is actually the noise of giant's fighting, and nixies live in a lake by the new development. The blend of faerie creatures into our homes and streets and forests makes the reader feel like she might stumble upon magic in the most mundane of places. It reminds me of a lot of my imaginative play when I was a girl. Nick and Laurie are compelling children that have big hearts and childish vices. They are definitely not perfect, and that is what makes us root for them more. They come from a troubled family, and much like the Grace children from the first series, they have to learn how to form a new family even as they confront supernatural threats to their existence. I read this book in two days, and would have finished faster if I didn't have a family of my own to care for. The story combines wonderful creativity, realistic family tension, problems that are completely normal for a child living in America today and problems that are out of this world, a well developed plot and setting, and great illustrations. I feel my review doesn't do it justice, so I will end with the simple summary that I had a fabulous time in the reading of it, and am excited to conclude this trilogy.
    • 4/5
      There are giants, they are destroying the new housing development that Nick's father has built....but how to solve the problem of the giants, who unbeknownst to Nick, Laurie & Jules, actually have a purpose....

      Another tale of the Spiderwick Chronicles, cleverly written and enjoyable to read.
    • 4/5
      The Giant Problem is a good book, but not as good as the first Spiderwick series. It's about three kids who fight giants, but at the end they find out that they need the giants to quell a danger that is even bigger. It is full of action and very successful. I recommend this book for any age. You will love it. When I was reading it, I was a little scared because the kids were being chased by a bunch of giants. This made me love the book.

    Book preview

    A Giant Problem - Tony DiTerlizzi

    Cover: A Giant Problem, by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi

    The Spiderwick Chronicles

    Book No. 7

    A Giant Problem

    DiTerlizzi and Black

    A Giant Problem, by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi, S&S Books for Young Readers

    The creature did a capering dance.

    Map of Mangrove HollowTable of Contents

    LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

    MAP OF MANGROVE HOLLOW

    CHAPTER ONE: IN WHICH

    NICK AND LAURIE GET ONE LESSON AND LEARN ANOTHER

    CHAPTER TWO: IN WHICH

    NICK AND LAURIE ARE SURPRISED BY THEIR VISITOR

    CHAPTER THREE: IN WHICH

    NICK AND LAURIE WITNESS ONE FIGHT AND ALMOST HAVE ANOTHER

    CHAPTER FOUR: IN WHICH

    A SANDSPUR GETS STUCK WITH NICK

    CHAPTER FIVE: IN WHICH

    NOSEEUM JACK IS SEEN

    CHAPTER SIX: IN WHICH

    NICK FINDS HOPE IN WRECKAGE

    CHAPTER SEVEN: IN WHICH

    NICK DANCES TO A NEW TUNE

    CHAPTER EIGHT: IN WHICH

    A BRIDGE IS CROSSED

    CHAPTER NINE: IN WHICH

    THE WORLD TURNS UPSIDE DOWN AGAIN

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    List of Full-Page Illustrations

    THE CREATURE DID A CAPERING DANCE

    MAP OF MANGROVE HOLLOW

    LAURIE RAISED HER HAND

    NICK STOPPED SMILING

    JACK STOOD IN THE FRONT ENTRANCE

    THE THUNDER GOT LOUDER

    WHY ARE THEY FIGHTING?

    THE CREATURE DID A CAPERING DANCE

    COME ON!

    I SAW THIS THING UNDERWATER TODAY.

    THERE’S SOMETHING THEY HUNT.

    NOT SURE WHAT TO EXPECT

    HIS VIKING SHIP

    CINDY WAS HOLDING HIS KEY RING.

    YOU CALLED TO US.

    GO! CINDY SHOUTED.

    HE’S BEAUTIFUL.

    YOU ARE A GENIUS.

    I KNOW LOTS.

    THE ELEVATOR CHIMED

    PLEASE LET THIS WORK

    WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?

    To my grandfather, Harry, who liked to make up stories.

    —H. B.

    To all my friends and family back in Florida. These images of my old home are for you.

    —T. D.

    Laurie raised her hand.

    Chapter One

    IN WHICH Nick and Laurie Get One Lesson and Learn Another

    Nicholas Vargas had never been all that good at sports. He liked to play basketball, but he scored a lot higher with a controller in his hand and an animated character shooting the baskets for him. Same with baseball and tennis and even swimming. He saw absolutely no reason why anything would be different when it came to giant-killing.

    Nick’s stepsister, Laurie, had twisted her blond tangles into braids because she’d read somewhere that it was important to keep hair off your face in a fight. She was determined to learn how to kill giants, but Nick was pretty sure that she was bad at basketball, baseball, tennis, and swimming in real life and on the screen. A notebook was balanced on her knees and she had set a microcassette recorder on the ground so she could replay the whole lesson later. She chewed the end of her pencil thoughtfully, ready to take extra notes, as Noseeum Jack started to speak.

    First you got to find the giant, he said, sitting down on a stump. They were in the front yard of Jack’s ramshackle house in the middle of the day, and the humid air settled on all their shoulders like a heavy blanket. If he’s moving, things have already gone too far. Your best bet is doing the slaying before they wake up.

    Laurie raised her hand.

    Jack kept on talking. Couple o’ ways to know there are giants underfoot. They like the swamps, but they like freshwater better than salt since they gotta drink it through their skin. Look for rocks and hills, especially if they’ve got odd-colored grass on ’em. Lots o’ the time, that grass is really hair.

    Laurie waved her hand a little, impatiently. Nick snatched her pencil. On the page of her notebook, he wrote HE’S BLIND.

    Jack’s eyes were cloudy with what Nick thought might be cataracts. His grandma had had cataracts and the doctors did some kind of laser surgery on them, but Jack’s eyes looked much worse than Nick’s grandmother’s had.

    Noseeum Jack. It was a really sad nickname. He’d had the Sight, and blindness took it away from him. Maybe he could see a little bit through the cloudiness, but obviously he couldn’t see enough to notice a hand waving in front of his face.

    Are there girl giants? Laurie asked, interrupting a story Jack had been telling about finding a giant by the way his mountainous head and weedlike hair were covered with dandruff.

    Uh, he said, and then scratched his head. Sure. I guess. Mostly I never noticed any difference.

    Laurie wrote something in her notebook, nodding.

    Look, Nick said. This is dumb. We’re just two kids. And you said that more giants were going to wake up. All of them, maybe. At once. We can’t stop that. This is useless.

    We all got to play the hand we’re dealt, Jack said, picking up his machete. This area’s where the highest concentration of giants’re at. Estimate’s maybe thirty still around. There are two good killing blows guaranteed to put down a giant if you just—

    What hand was I dealt? It’s summer, said Nick. "My job in the summer is to have fun. School’s out. We shouldn’t have to come

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