The Good Neighbors - Softcover

Holly Black is the author of the bestselling series The Spiderwick Chronicles (with Tony DiTerlizzi), The Good Neighbors graphic novels, and the novels Tithe, Valiant, and Ironside. She currently lives in the realm of Western Massachusetts.

Ted Naifeh is the author and illustrator of many acclaimed graphic novels, including Polly and the Pirates, Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things, and Courtney Crumrin Tales: Portrait of the Warlock as a Young Man. He has also illustrated the popular Death Jr. and Gloomcookie series.

Rue Silver’s everyday life with her professor father and ethereal mother comes crashing to a surreal end when her mother one day simply disappears. As Rue starts noticing oddities in her little town—people with wings or animal faces, or vines that seem to sprout up over everything at night—she tries to tell herself that such things would be crazy. When her extended family appear and claim that she is part of a hidden faerie world, Rue finds herself embroiled in a magical fight for power. The first volume in a series, this book goes a long way in setting up a foreboding, darkly mysterious atmosphere while giving the reader quick details for characterization. Black, one of the authors of the Spiderwick Chronicles, does a wonderful job of weaving an alien faerie world through Rue’s urban landscape, and Naifeh’s art, rich with shadows, is expressive and angular and pulls the reader into the story with a solid sense of place. Urban-fantasy readers of Neil Gaiman, Charles de Lindt, and Terri Windling will be immediate fans of this title. Grades 10-12. --Tina Coleman