We wanted to like this. We read Boyton's books to our son ...
585741
We wanted to like this.  We read Boyton's books to our son when he was younger.  It didn't work for us.  All the drawings were distracting!
1566906
My kids enjoyed the gimmickery of the AniMotion effects, and the story was pleasant enough. However, my two kids (boys aged 4 and 6) were not interested enough in the story or the book and didn't demand additional readings.  Sadly, it looks nice but isn't a keeper for us.  Of course, reasonable minds may differ and your kids may like it more than mine.
1051094
My son expected to like this series as well as he liked Percy Jackson, but that is not the case!
4106674
Maybe this was meant for teenage boys?  I assume that a reading adult would like more character development, more plot, longer sentences, paragraphs, chapters..... It could have been a good story but, as it is, it is somewhat cartoonish and unsatisfying.
1623557
I read a lot of books out loud to my kids (ages 8 and 10). We average around 20-25 books per school year. I decided we'd try George Knows based on the many 5 star reviews. We could barely make it through the first chapter of this book. I can count on one hand the books we have started and not finished. I did not care for the writing style. Perhaps it would be better not as a read a loud? Some might think it's unfair of me to rate it so poorly after not having read the entire book. I appreciate the effort that must have gone into the writing of the book. But in my opinion, life is too short (and there are way too many books on my want to read list) to invest the time to see if this one gets any better.
1546720
We have een reading a few chapters of similar-level books to our 6 year old each night. So far, he hasn't turned down or stopped reading a single book... until this one. I purchased the first 4 in the series to take advantage of Amazon's 4-for-3 promotion but he asked his Daddy to stop reading after chapter two. He just didn't like the story and we moved on to something else. RL Stine for the younger set? I thought that would be a winner! In our home, not so much.
856723
Out of about 100 books bought in the last 2 months for our two year old, this is the only one that we're returning and don't want to read to him. It's not that what other reviews praise about the story and pictures isn't true, it's just that the story and pictures also depict values and actions that we are not comfortable exposing to our young child although I seriously considered keeping the book for myself because I personally liked it. The main character is not a very good role model. (Because we are both parents and early childhood and elementary educators, we may be more attuned to and concerned about role models in books, which may not be as big of an issue or concern to others so this book may be fine depending on one's particular sensitivies and orientation.) Not every child is a childhood prodigy like Farkle McBride and particularly with certain issues that surround children in today's American culture and media, I am concerned about a child being exposed to a character who can master something without trying that hard or practicing or sticking to it and who easily gives up what they're doing because they get bored. Though not automatically negative, there's a bit of concern that a message is being sent suggesting that the one who is in charge (e.g. the conductor) has a better job than the others. Though amusing from an adult point of view, the book has images of instruments being broken in pieces or thrown away because the child is bored of them - not a good model for caring for personal property and respecting the investment (monetary and time) made by his parents to support his interests. We love Lithgow's other children's CDs and some of his other works but considering the selection of books out there, I think one can easily make a better choice for stories about children and music (e.g. for whole orchestra books try "Zin, Zin, Zin, A Vioin", the Gustav Mole books, "The Hippo Hop", "The Story of the Incredible Orchestra", and for less than full orchestra books, "Mole Music", "Song and Dance Man").
3213644
My son, 12-1/2 could not put it down.  He is a reader anyway, but he really got into this and read the whole series in just a couple weeks.  My middle son, however, did not care for it.  Read a little from the first book, but it didn't captivate him to continue reading.  I will have to push him to try it again.
1201207
My son did not like this book. We read a little of it and then stopped. Some of the other Geronimo Stilton books are good, however this one was not a favorite.
2706585
The biggest problem with this story is that we expected a whole lot more in way of the story.  The synopsis said "even little creatures can have big adventures." When I downloaded this book, there were only a few reviews, all positive, and they all talked about going on 2 quests (this apparently is poor writing, now I think the reviewer meant 2 guests) and adventure.  SPOILER- when the story ends with meeting the queen, the kids were very disappointed.  While they enjoyed the trip to the queen, they were waiting for the adventures to start.  End SPOILER

The writing was decent, and the illustrations were very good.  I think we just were led to beleive there was a lot more to the story than there was. So, bottom line, when we're doing bed-time stories, it's hasn't been requested again.
1052345
We could't get our son to listen to us reading the book. He was bored. The pictures are not great and he kept asking us to read him another book. I should mention he LOVES reading.
1674227
After reading this book, I felt very convinced that this would be the right method for us, but in the end it did not do enough for us.

We implemented a lot of new skills and routines which helped us get our baby to bed at an earlier time, but he continued waking 5-10 + times per night. I also found it difficult to write out the sleep plan as she leaves a lot of blanks expecting you to fill them in. The whole point of getting the book was so that I could have someone spell it out for me step by step, yet she expects you to fill in all the blanks in the sleep plan...

We definitely hit a plateau, we have gotten babys sleep on more of a routine schedule, we also managed to get him to sleep in the crib more(not without tears and a lot of picking up and putting back down over and over again) but he does not sleep much more in the end, nor does he wake any less than before. He also still wakes up crying every time he wakes up, and still can not fall asleep on his own.

Im disappointed, I so wanted this to work, but after 2 months of trying, we need to move on to something else.
4359612
We got this dvd because my son loved dancing to the preview of it, which was on another dvd we had.

We thought he would love the characters and the story. Turns out there is not much singing on the actual dvd (only that preview he saw)...so, it did not hold his interest. Our son is 1. perhaps this would be better for an older child.
2192806
Twelve year old David has recently lost his mother.  It was just he and his dad, until his dad started seeing Rose.  Then they decided to move in together and soon baby stepbrother Georgie is on the way.  David feels upset and annoyed that Rose and Georgie are taking over the house.  He wants to be left alone with just him and his father.  David also loves books and can sometimes hear them whispering to him.  David takes refuge in his books to escape reality.  Sometimes the line seems to blur, especially when David 'blacks out' and seems to visit the worlds he reads about in books.  One day, exploring the garden outside the house, David discovers a crevice in the stones.  Going through, he quickly finds himself stranded in a world of great adventures and great dangers.  He comes across many unlikely characters on his journey who seem oddly familiar to those he's read about in books, but also somewhat distorted.  David must travel through this world to find the king if he ever hopes to return home.

Interesting enough story.  I felt it was pretty slow most of the time.  I think since I was reading this book to fit the action tag, that I wanted it to be more fast paced and action - thriller type.  It wasn't that, which left me a bit disappointed.  However, I think if I had gone into it expecting a fantasy book, I would have enjoyed it much more.  Enjoyment really does hinge on expectations.  I did enjoy seeing the characters from some beloved stories turn up with surprising twists.  ***potential spoiler***  I'm left unsatisfied with the ending though as it read more of a dream or afterlife than of David actually visiting another world.  I'd much prefer to believe that other worlds exist rather than try to wrap stories in a neat bow and make them fit in our world.  ***end of spoiler***

A good passage:
"Stories were different, though: they came alive in the telling.  Without a human voice to read them aloud, or a pair of wide eyes following them by flashlight beneath a blanket, they had no real existence in our world.  They were like seeds in the beak of a bird, waiting to fall to earth, or the notes of a song laid out on a sheet, yearning for an instrument to bring their music into being.  They lay dormant, hoping for the chance to emerge.  Once someone started to read them, they could begin to change.  They could take root in the imagination, and transform the reader.  Stories wanted to be read....They needed it.  It was the reason they forced themselves from their world into ours.  They wanted us to give them life."
2083545
Our kids went through about lesson 55, but then got bored and daunted by the long stories and relative paucity of pictures (just one small picture is included in each chapter.)  SO, the major failing is that this book, by itself, isn't really "fun" enough to hold our children's interest.  We supplemented it with "[...]" and "bob books first" and "scholastic early readers" books.  The headsprout stuff is so much fun that our kids are dying to play with it every day.  they also like to read the scholastic early readers.  we occasionally do a lesson from this book but ITS RELATIVELY BORING compared to other ways of teaching our kids.  Teaching should be "fun", there is not much "fun" in this book.

The biggest failing of this book is that it does not teach enough rules, and does not spend enough time educating the teacher in how to present.  for example, i found myself very frustrated because my kids did not know the "silent e" rules for decoding words, and they did not know what vowels were.  the book also does not have a list of phonemes or sub-phonemes that you could just make sure you kids know to pronounce together, sounds like "th", "sh", "gh", etc., cannot be easily understood by following the phonics rules in this book (at least, at chapter 55, they weren't.)  There are no self-assessment tests to ensure that your kids are prepared to go onwards.  All in all, the major weakness of this curriculum is that it requires a high degree of teaching skill to implement successfully, as there is very little curriculum theory in the book.

our kids can decode but what's really the problem is that they lack their own motivation to decode and read.  they will occasionally read things and try to spell things on their own, but they don't have the motivation to pick up an early reader book and get through the entire book, on their own, yet.  i do not think we are "pushing" our kids so much, as they just don't have the right stuff (and we don't have the time to design something from scratch) that makes reading "fun".

Our twin boys just turned 4 years old.  disclaimer: both parents are engineers, one with a ph.d.
4204240
It seems like something my son would be interested in, but he really wasn't...I picked it up when we were traveling hoping that it will catch his imagination and his interest, but sorry to say - failed to do both.
3995285
According to my son, he did not like the book.  Mainly, the problem for him was understanding the ending.  My son is 10 and is on the autism spectrum.  Thus, the ending, which is vague and subject to interpretation, was very difficult for him to accept.  It was an easy read for him, but was sad that it did not have, in his words, "a solid, concrete ending." This was the quote he struggled with: "But the sky was bright, and he somehow felt he was headed in the right direction."  To my son, he wanted to know more.