There was a movie made out of this series, so I was thinking that book one would be really good.

It was short – only about 100 pages – and contained a lot of illustrations, so it only took me about a half hour to read through the whole thing. My son could probably read and comprehend this entire book. For me, it wasn’t interesting enough to make me want to read more. Three children move to a new house with their mother after their father leaves them. The house itself is dilapidated and falling apart, but belonged to an aunt. The children discover secret rooms in the house and one of the boys finds the field guide, which is a book chronicling the existence of mythical creatures such as fairies.

Really, that’s book one in a nutshell. At the very end they do encounter one such mythical creature. But in this book, not much happens. I suppose it’s setting up the entire series. The characters themselves aren’t that exciting or well developed. But for a book aimed at children, I suppose you can’t expect much of that.

Kids may enjoy this one but as an adult, I’d just either watch the movie or let your kids read it to you.