A couple of years ago, I was down in South Florida showing Holly Black some of the natural areas that I knew very well as a kid growing up. I took her to the rocky shore of Blowing Rocks Preserve and the scrubby palmetto woods of Jonathon Dickinson State Park. Our purpose was to find inspirational locales for the Spiderwick sequel, Beyond The Spiderwick Chronicles (BtSC).

BtSC takes place in fictitious Mangrove Hollow, one of the numerous housing developments that have blanketed the coast of Florida (as I am sure has happened in many places nationwide). There is a proximity to a preserved natural wetland, but also there are man-made (or “man-enhanced”) natural features like the excavated pond that Taloa the nixie lives in.

Angela and I showed Holly a housing development in my old hometown of Jupiter that was exactly how I envisioned Mangrove Hollow. We walked around the development, schemed and plotted a bit, and took photos for visual reference. Ang’s mom was a realtor for the development and, before we knew it, we found ourselves inside one of the models.

Ang and I both loved it.

So here I am again, a couple of years later, back in Florida - we purchased a little winter home right here in Mangrove Hollow. I walk Sophia by Taloa’s pond every day, but we still have yet to see her…or any giants (thank goodness!)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 8:39 am and is filed under Spiderwick Stuff, Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.