Magic Tree House Books 1-28 Boxed Set (Magic Tree House (R))

I came across the Magic Tree House in a roundabout way through the French translation. I was immediately taken and they seemed to answer all my prayers and I ordered the box set. My son is just moving into chapter books and has struggled with distracting illustration or lack of fact. He does not do fantasy at all and loses interest very fast. For starters the layout of the pages was clear, no fancy wrap around pictures text, which makes reading harder for children who are moving onto chapter books. In fact most of the images are on separate pages. The images are clear and to the point, complementing the story effectively rather than great works of art competing with the text and distracting the reader. Some pages have no pictures. Great illustration is fine and fantastic in books read by parents to children but can really get in the way of a beginner reader trying to concentrating on the text. The stories are solid and sound based in reality with adventure and lots of fact. The Tree House device is not unlike the magic Key in the Oxford tree series. I think these are great follow on books at a great price, less the £2 per book! The two characters can be identified with. No poo or fart story lines here, thank goodness. My son's reading confidence is growing as he is working through his first chapter books. I am already a fan

Our child loves this series. It’s full of adventures and factual information. The stories are cleverly written to allow children to learn about history in a fun and exciting way. Our child loves these books.

These books are great! Educational and fun what more can you ask for, my 5 year old can read them and the parents can read them! There is a UK and a US edition, both very similar apart from Mum, Mom etc! that is why there are two web sites and two names for many of the books. I wouldnt pay £3.99 per book but the box set is good value I haven't found the UK edition in a box set to date. Happy Reading

excellent quality and value

Fast. Easy to communicate with them.

Great stories for kids!

An engaging set of books that my 7 year old enjoys reading. She loves anything historical so finds these books enjoyable and at a suitable level for her to ready by herself. They are not too long and the text is easy to read. However, although a 7year old enjoys them, I find the text overly repetitive with too little variation - there are many other ways to write "he said." Also, the punctuation of the sentences needs some work. I find sentences started when only a comma should have been used. The "sentence" is then only a sentence fragment and makes no sense on its own. Apart from the stylistic irritations, they are useful books and have encouraged my daughter to finally embark on independent reading. My only personal frustration is the quality of the books: the pages are thin; the covers poor and the box lacking substance. They won't last long but again, have been worth the joy they have given my daughter.

I'm enjoying these books as much as my seven year old daughter! We will definitely buy the next series too!

Compramos estos libros de 2a mano y en verdad están como nuevos, excelente compra a menor precio!

A great set of books for our junior library :)

Box is very flimsy but books are great. My daughter will love them. The UK version is much more appealing but this is not bad at all.

Coleção top. Vale muito a pena. Ótimo para crianças de 8-11a. Recomendo. Ler com as crianças e deixá-las lerem sozinhas.

I know several folks about my age who read some of these growing up, but I'm reading these for the first time when reading to my son at bedtime. These are approachable, easy to read aloud to a child, not too stimulating, and the chapters are short enough and the structure predictable enough that it makes a parent's role easier. The contents are also predictable in the sense that you don't have to worry too much about content filtering for age appropriateness; no questionable moral messages. A couple minor criticisms: (Acknowledging that these are children's books...) The contents are generally very simple, sometimes too simple in my opinion, even for the target audience. There's a good variety of settings, but the arc of each book (and even the longer arcs that carry across books) are like boring side quests to an aimless video game. I've observed it's hard for any of us to get invested in the characters or feel their adventures are much more than an errand. I think part of the problem is the limitations of the format, but also limited stakes, growth, and hurdles. There's also errors that can be annoying if you let them. Like the Moon book where the author obviously used her imagination and pre-1950 ideas about being on the moon, rather than doing some homework on it before world building. To be fair, I think these were written in the mid 90s before most of the modern Internet, but still... gravity doesn't change when you step outside, space suit oxygen systems and airlocks don't work that way, you wouldn't build a pressurized dome as the landing pad for a rocket, etc. Similar ideas in other books, like the antics with the octopus and mini-sub in the Reef book. These sorts of things aren't explained a way by contrivances or magic systems, but are giving children the idea that "this is how it really works". Truly, these are nitpicks, but depending on how much you care about a given topic, you may feel the need to pause and correct the author's lack of due diligence.