“After his mother died, Nicholas Vargas stopped bothering.”

From Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black’s Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles: The Nixie’s Song.

Nicholas’ life has pretty much fallen apart, because not only has he lost his mom, but his newly-remarried dad is moving their blended family to Mangrove Hollow in Florida.  Along for the terrible move is Nicholas’ older brother, Julian, and their step-sister, Laurie, but things are far from smooth between Nicholas and Laurie, especially when he learns that she believes in fairies and magical creatures.  When they takes a walk to a nearby lake, Nicholas and Laurie quickly learns that their new home is surrounded by some major, unbelievable danger.  After picking a four leaf clover, both kids are able to see magical creatures that had previously been invisible, and a Nixie named Taloa tells them that her sisters are missing.  Nicholas and Laurie set off to find the missing nixies, but before long the kids find the fire-breathing giant that is easily angered when not being soothed by nixie singing.  Never expecting to fall into such a wild adventure, Nicholas and Laurie search for a way to stop the giant before he sets all of Florida, and their new home, on fire.

DiTerlizzi and Black again create a captivating story through both words and pictures; the characters are unique and readers are easily able to connect more with the characters.  The illustrations are beautiful and help to aid in the development of the story, while the book’s short length makes reading it a breeze.  As the first book in this spin-off series, The Nixie’s Song kicks off the fun, magical adventure to an impressive start.