I admit that I've only thumbed through DOAWK, but it struck me as pretty lowest-common-denominator. Also, the attitude towards school and authority wasn't one I was thrilled with for my 7yo.

I just sounded like a total uptight snob. Oh well. I totally let my DD read the whole series anyway, but I was glad when she was done. I guess I see the books as a great choice for older reluctant readers and a peer-pressure thing for kids like ours.

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Personally, I don't care what kids are reading for pleasure, as long as they're reading.

I have to confess that I do care. Important caveat: I have kids who already love to read. If they didn't, then I would definitely say--well, for the love of god, let's get them reading however we can.

But I want them to read great literature. Not just because it's edifying, blah blah, but because I want them to see how incredibly beautiful and life-changing great literature can be. Also, I do think that reading great writing makes you into a better writer. If all you ever read was Magic Treehouse (KILL ME NOW), you would write some damned terrible prose.

They also can read junk books for fun, of course. But just as we shouldn't eat McDonald's for every meal, we should not subsist solely on junk series books written by teams of monkeys chained to computers. ("Daisy Meadows," I'm looking in your direction.)