My eight-year-old stepson learned a hard lesson with this book, that the book and movie don't always match. Of course, since he saw the movie many times before he ever read the book, he decided that the movie is right and the book is wrong. So he was less than thrilled with it, and I decided to read it for myself. I thought it was very well-written for a children's book, and I never felt that it was dumbed down. It was quite funny, which is always a plus. But I'm only giving it three stars because the story was somewhat predictable and didn't hold my attention too terribly much. I'm going to try to get him to read the second book in the series next, but I'm not sure if I'll be successful.