It took me a really long time to get into this book, which is surprising, considering it is a children's book. Maybe it's just me, but I can't imagine very many kids reading half way through this rather long book in hopes that it will get better. Having said that, I will also say that the second half of this book was much more interesting to me and I do plan to read the sequels, although I'm not sure how quickly I would have looked for them if I hadn't already checked them out from the library.