Independent Reading Level: Grades 2-4
Honors/Awards: None

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Player pianos, ghosts, and your first "twist ending" regarding Slim and the treehouse book. ( )

In my opinion, this is a great children's book because it allows the reader to feel as if they are jumping into a completely different universe. The book had a few pictures scattered throughout the story which helped me visualize the setting. For example, when Jack and Annie (the main characters) arrived in the Wild West, they landed in a ghost town which they described as "empty and spooky." The illustration on the next page of the book shows a town that you would imagine to see in the 1800's in the West. The language the author used in this book was also very descriptive, which made it easier to imagine myself in the story while the events were unfolding. For example, when Jack and Annie tried to figure out where the music they heard was coming from, they peeked inside a building labeled "hotel" to see "fading daylight lit a piano in the corner of the room" with the keys moving up and down on their own. This helped me visualize a piano playing in the corner of an old hotel room as night is nearing.The big idea of this story is that your imagination is a powerful tool, and you can use it to take you on any adventure that you can think of.