The illustrations are lovely enough, but the text is awkward and the story reads like one of the 'instant classics' I so despise. Nobody is fully alive or real - it's workmanlike. And despite the fact this is book 1 of a series, there's an allusion to a previous adventure that's very distracting. It's like a book a well-meaning but non-reading uncle would buy a child. And no, I'm not being a cynical adult - I would not have loved this even when I was actually a child ( )