chelsmm Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 We just finished "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase", and we all loved it. Are the others in the series good? Are they appropriate for 6-8 year olds? They seem like they might be too complicated. Thanks, Chelsea Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Yes, all good. I haven't read all of them, but the ones I have read are and I've heard they're all great. The main characters change for each of the first three, so keep that in mind. The plots are, indeed, complex. I have seen several people here put them at a 3rd grade reading level and that seems overly ambitious. While I'm always dubious of Lexiles and so forth, Scholastic has Black Hearts in Battersea as a RL 7.7 and a Lexile of 900, which seems about right to me. Not only is the plot twisty turny, but the language is rich and the accents are a bit of a hurdle. We've been reading several of them aloud... But I don't think we could have done them before the last year or so and my boys are 9 yo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Oh, jeez, it's hard to say! We are on the 9th book now. I for one am very tired of the series, but my kids are relentless about finishing series we start (they made me read all 13 Series of Unfortunate Events books, too!). I like the language, it's a very bizarre parallel history that makes it kind of fun for me to try and figure out how it fits (or doesn't) with the "real world" the language is fun, but the books are getting increasingly strange and depressing. The kids really enjoy them all. I liked the first two a lot, and have liked them less since then. I don't think they are inappropriate for little kids, but there definitely are more bad things that happen - deaths of fairly significant supporting characters, for example - that start cropping up with more regularity as the series goes on. The Stolen Lake was weird, Dangerous Games had a supporting character get killed, shockingly, and Dido and Pa and Is Underground had a lot of really casual brutality toward children. Bad guys do get punished, but still . . . We are reading Cold Shoulder Road now, and it is just depressing. Maybe read Black Hearts in Battersea, and if they really love Dido in BHiB, then consider continuing - she is the main character in the next few. But don't tell them it's a series, so that you can bow out at any time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chelsmm Posted January 9, 2014 Author Share Posted January 9, 2014 I already told them it's a series! :) So is Blackhearts in Batter Sea the next book? I am having a hard time figuring that out on my phone tonight. We are listening to the audiobooks. The kids could never read them, and I don't want to. I enjoyed the language though but not to read aloud. We are almost finished with The Last Battle, and then we have Harry Potter 6 up next for audio books. We are in the car quite a bit, and so I need books that we will all enjoy. :) Thanks, chelsea Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 Ooh, bad news. As far as I know, there aren't audiobooks for the others. I did like her daughter's narration on the first one though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marbel Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 We found as we moved through the series that the plots got stranger and stranger, darker and darker. We read them all, but by the end we were all sort of worn-out. If I recall correctly, there was a good "finish" at the end of the series so that made it worth it, I guess. I can't remember when we stopped loving them; it was definitely after Nightbirds on Nantucket. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 http://www.joanaiken.com/pages/wolves_chronicals.html Here is a good website that has the books in chrono order (which is different from publication order) and a description of each of the books. I'm actually kind of excited to get to the last two - it seems to wrap up the stories of Dido and Simon, who were our favorite characters anyway. If I were doing it again, I might read 1, 2, 3, 7, then 10 and 11 (I think, we haven't done those last two yet). ETA: I cross-posted with Marbel, but it sounds like our experiences were very similar! Glad to hear it ends well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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