magic tree house

I have not read many of them, but we have a few in the house. The dinosaur one makes a few references to ‘millions of years’ which does not meet our family’s view of creation, so I’d pass on that. I don’t plan to use them as curriculum, but if your child really enjoys them and they spark an interest in history it may be worth it to read a few of them.

@petitemom, I do remember there was quite a good/detailed thread on the magic treehouse series a few months ago (maybe even a year). It’s worth looking for; I recall reading the thread, and in the end I did decide to pull almost all of these from our leisure bookshelf. (I kept the resource/fact guides and I choose just 3 other of the story types). It’s a hard one…the series is so great for a very specific reading level that would just otherwise not be reading chapter books, but some of the content – and more importantly – the “angle” of how the content is presented (witchery, if that’s the right term) is just not what I wanted my kids spending their time pondering:) (now, keep in mind that my kids LOVE their books and spend a lot of time with them and then talking about the storylines…and THEN reading them AGAIN) I decided the series was fine for a book or two or maybe three, for the practise-reading aspect, but I just didn’t care to have my kids be “all in” to this particular series (and reading them over and over again). Interestingly we also came to this decision because our 5 year old (at the time) saw his big brothers reading the series and he wanted to be part of it. So, we read him a couple as his night time read. THAT’s when we decided we didn’t want this to on our kids’ favourites list… HTH, Angie

The Imagaination Station series by Focus on the Family is a good alternative.  I’ve reviewed several of the books on my blog.  Here is the review for Attack on the Arena. 

You orginnaly asked if there was any merit to reading this series.  Merit is “the quality of being particularly good or worthy, esp. so as to deserve praise or reward.”  No, there is probabaly not a lot merit to reading the books.  They are not particularily praiseworthy.   

I think the dilemna that we face with is the lack quality literature at this reading level.  Yes, there are some, but just not a ton.  They want to read and we want them to read.  Do you compromise and give them twaddle (even the Imagination Station is twaddlish)?  Or do you offer them less selection and encourage them to re-read the good books and strive to improve their reading level?  Everyone will answer those questions differently.

I have exhausted most book lists (sonlight, AO, SCM), and we just run out of things to read, they will reread some books over and over, but not all. So I tend to let them read some twaddle (although sometimes I have to draw the line!) so mine read most Magic Treehouse books, with discussion about magic/lying, etc.

I have a few of Elspeth Campbell Murphy’s books. 3 of The Beatitudes Mysteries and 3 of The Ten Commandments Mysteries. Has anyone used these series or authour? They are 40-45 pages each and the level of reading we are aiming for in this discussion.