Dinosaurs Before Dark (Magic Tree House, No. 1)

Granddaughter loves these... her favorite series! She is a precocious 2nd grader who loves to read. I ask her which book does she want me to buy her and she always answers "The Tree House!" By now I think I've ordered the entire series!

This was a great chapter book. It was a really fun adventure. The two characters, Jack and his younger sister Annie, find all kinds of fun and trouble on their magical trip to a world filled with dinosaurs. This book had really cool illustrations too. They were beautiful and did a fantastic job of giving a sense of scale. They made the tree house look like it was way up high in the tree and they made the dinosaurs look huge. Sal Murdocca is a talented artist. They did a great job incorporating them with the typography. I could tell some of the illustrations were designed specifically to leave space for a paragraph or two of text and it made the book even more fun to read than just having little illustrations placed on the top of the page every once in a while. There was usually only one illustration per chapter but they always took up at least one whole page and sometimes two pages in a big spread. A lot of thought went into the layout and illustrations of this book and it makes for one heck of a read for a small exciting 10 chapter story. I read this book because I'm getting into writing chapter books and this book came highly recommended from the research I did on great kids chapter books. Now I can see why. Great writing that I can tell was crafted into very neat and easy to read sentences. A well plotted little story that just moves and keeps the reader engaged. A really fun magical adventure, and gorgeous well used illustrations along the way. I can't wait to read Magic Tree House # 2 and visit a castle!

Perfect book to read with my grandson. He’s becoming a better reader to start 1st grade. I will be buying more magic tree house stories!

I homeschooled my three sons and we read ALL of the Magic Treehouse Books during those years. Now, one of my grown sons is homeschooling his two children and I bought this (and also volumes #2 & 2) for them. Of course, they loved them and are reading more of them.

A friend of mine had told me that the Magic Tree House books are great for small children. I'm hesitant in the selection of books that I pick for my young ones to read and was looking for a serious of books that they could get hooked on for a while. That way we could have a little collection of them. I would have to say that the recommendation for children in 1st-3rd grade is accurate. Dinosaurs Before Dark is a super fun read for any little dinosaur fan! I know that we will be hooked on the Magic Tree House serious from this point forward and can't wait to order the next few for the children to read. Any parent could breeze through this book in under an 1 tops, so it makes it nice when helping the younger early readers and you don't feel like you're going to pull your hair out when they want to accomplish reading a book in 1 or 2 sittings.

I really can't recommend this series enough. Buy this book for child. Now. Click the button. We recently started reading chapter books for our nearly 5 year old son. We bought a few different ones to see what he'd like. We bought and read the first of My Father's Dragon and The Littles. He liked them OK. My wife and I didn't like My Father's Dragon so much because it seems quite dated. The Littles was OK but was rather violent for a kid his age. But the Magic Tree house series is in a word ... magical. My son can't wait for us to read several chapters at bed time and always asks for one more no matter how many we read. I think we are already on book 10 now. It will be sad when we finally finish the last one. What's so great about these books is that they combine adventure with learning about so many different things ... history, other cultures, geography, animals, and so on. My wife and I also appreciate that the books are about a boy and a girl, not just a boy going on the adventures. The girl is brave and somewhat impulsive, and the boy is more hesitant and cerebral. Together, they make a great team. They also aren't simply exploring. For each book, they have some sort of mission, such as figuring out a riddle or finding a certain object, so there's some sort of puzzle element to the books that spurs thinking. Generally, the missions are part of a larger mission that spans several books as well. What more can you ask for as a parent? These books are fun and engaging for our son, teach him about lots of different things, and encourage him to think abstractly about what's happening in the story. Thank you Mary Pope Osborne!

Excelente opción para niños que han comenzado a leer historias cautivadoras

I have a very reluctant reader... he's 6. We spend a lot of money on a tutor to try and get his reading level up hoping he won't dislike it so much. The tutor suggested the Magic Tree House series and he absolutely LOVES them!!!! He read this book in two days- this is the first time he's EVER been excited to read (he got up one morning and flat out asked first thing if he could read!!). I'm really pleased with this book and have already bought several others in the series that he has now read or is working on. For me this is a miracle series. I know several teachers have posted reviews saying not to expose your children to Mrs. Pope's terrible writing style (citing grammatical issues and terrible sentence structure)- personally, I just want my kid reading (and preferably something not terribly offensive like a few others out there for this age group- we don't do potty humor around this house), I'm fine with teaching him sentence structure separately if needed as long as he's developing a love for reading now which he clearly is. On a side note, having listened to him read this story out loud, I think the story is really cute.

The story was enjoyed by all, children and adults

Wonderful story book.

It was too magical and absolutely super book for kids

Pequeño, manejable y fácil de leer. La calidad del papel es tipo reciclado, nada de hojas blancas satinadas y sin dibujos a color. La historia muy chula.

We got this book as the gift. We fell in love with it so I bought my kids full sets (not so great colorful quality like this particular edition - I would bankrupt considering the number of books in set) but still good for my little book-dragons. My son literally devoured it - nice illustrations and great story.