Poor young Freddie Highmore is really up against it in the film version of The Spiderwick Chronicles. He’s stalked and attacked by a whole mob of ghouls, goblins and trolls, led by a gruesome shape-changing ogre of distinctly evil intentions. Not only that, he’s the only one in his seriously endangered family who can see and hear these hideous creatures, residents of a realm hidden from ordinary human perception.

Young Marjane is no one’s idea of a heroine. A self-obsessed nine-year-old when we first meet her, she takes from the world around her only what she can use for games. Even as a teenager in the 1980s, she adapts and discards trends and styles on a daily basis, wearing a “punk” jacket while listening to Iron Maiden. She is, by any standard, an ordinary girl.