THE WYRM KING: Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles, Book 3
by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780689871337
Ages 7-up
224 pages
Nick's punishment after being out all night with Jules and Laurie is the worst imaginable. His dad, who blames himself for their problems, hauls the entire family off to a counselor. The counselor insists they call her by her first name, wears her long gray hair in a multi-braided hairdo, and decorates her office with crystals, mood music and a big box of tissues. She also wants to "maintain positive spiritual energy" during their session. While "Teresa" yammers on, Nick is sunk deep in his own gloomy thoughts, pondering the fact that he had thought he was being heroic with the giant situation; instead, he managed to make everything unbelievably worse.
But Nick tunes back in when he hears Charlene and his dad exchanging barbs about their children. And he is appalled when his father and stepmother announce they think the family will be happier if they separate temporarily. Although Nick and Jules apologize and ask them to stay together, their folks insist. On their way home, their dad must stop the car to avoid a tremendous sinkhole, which Jules and Nick believe indicates an ominous problem, especially after they call the authorities and learn there have been multiple reports of sinkholes. And, of course, there are those awful snake-like appendages Nick is almost sure he glimpsed creeping out from the sinkhole.
When Nick searches for news about sinkholes in Florida on his computer, his worst suspicions are confirmed. Sinkholes have appeared everywhere, and the world is about to be destroyed. Noseeum Jack is gone, and all the other adults are totally clueless. That means it is up to Nick and the others to save the world. But can they? He gathers the troops: Laurie (along with her little faerie, Sandspur), Jared, Simon and Mallory. When they approach the sinkhole, a dangerous situation immediately develops, with one member of their group in extreme peril. Soon they are face to face with something much more horrifying than giants.
As more (monster-populated) sinkholes appear and spread, Nick and his friends know they must take drastic action immediately, since time is running out. Nick believes he should persuade the nixies to sing as part of a solution, but in order to do that, he makes them a promise that leads him into a terrifying situation on top of a surfboard in the middle of the ocean.
Plentifully illustrated with wonderful drawings, THE WYRM KING by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black is a dazzling capper to the series, complete with a twist-and-turn plot, crazy scrapes with wild solutions, and an easily digested theme about the way humans can interfere with the environment to the detriment of all, even when they believe they're being helpful. The family issues strike a note of reality with which many readers can identify, and the fantasy and adventure are imaginative and enjoyable.
--- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon (terryms2001@yahoo.com)
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