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

I am a dyslexia therapist and I use these books to help children be able to read longer words and they love these books. It is great for building vocabulary and building the ability to read multisyllable words. These books are amazing!

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!

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!

Love these books and the price so we can purchase multiple copies and read as a family.

Was looking for something more to read with my 4 year old since he loves for me to read to him at night to the point that we have several books we go through. I came across this little chapter book. It was so engaging for my son he loved it so much! When it was over he accidentally said “can we watch another movie”. We will continue to read this series for sure!

I wish there are more picture pages to keep my kids (3 and 5) engaged more

My 5 year old loves these books. Entertaining and offers historical references.

My eight-year-old nephew is all about dragons and dungeons. He truly is enjoying this book.Perfect size and great value.