Rating: 
Summary: Great stories, poorly written...
Review: Ok, I'll say up front that these are great stories for kids to read. I've been reading them to my 4 year old for some time, and the pace, characters, and action are all perfectly suited. Each of these books grabs his interest and makes him excited about reading more.
The problem I've got with the series is the author's skillset with the language. Some folks may want to overlook this based on the content alone; I feel this view is simple and potentially detrimental to the child. For lots of kids these are first readers, and help develop a child's view of language structure. They're going to start off mimicking the writing 'style' the see; in the case of these books, they'll be seeing a lot of poorly defined (or non-defined) paragraphs, sentence fragments, and grammatical errors. They'll be seeing poorly written examples that will help establish the basis of bad writing habits which may take a lot of work to erase. Whoever edited these books needs a new career.
That said, we skip around the series quite a bit. The latest books are comparatively excellent as far as language mechanics. There's a definite progression in writing *quality* throughout the series, and content is high for all. I just wish Pope-Osborne had taken a creative writing class or two in the beginning.
If you're reading these books to/with your child, you can do some on-the-fly editing. If your child has enough language skill to spot the mistakes, they'll be fine. Otherwise, you might want to proceed with a little caution, or skip ahead in the series.
Rating: 
Summary: Ok, but not well written, overall.
Review: The first book in the series wasn't too bad. It was filled with suspense and exciting dinosaurs! However, after reading #2 and #3 I came to the realization that apparently the writing wasn't going to get any better. These books are written in simple sentence format, too juvenile for most kids I think. Also the author includes phrases like, "I'm going to kill her!" and living in the times that we do, I don't think this is appropriate. Also I didn't think the stories flowed well. They were way too choppy and broken up. We were left scratching our heads after some of it. Overall, I think you can do much better with other series'. The Boxcar Children would be one of my suggestions. I thought the premise these books are based on was so fun and held great promise. Oh well.
Rating: 
Summary: wonderfully imaginative..........
Review: The Magic Tree House books are wonderful for early elementary kids. My first and second graders love for me to read these books aloud. They are simple and uncomplicated with short chapters which could cause them to be a bit boring for older kids. Each book has Jack and Annie magically going to another time and place by wishing on a book left in the tree house. This series (I have #1-24) have really turned some of my non-readers onto reading.
Rating: 
Summary: It's no Moby Dick, but...
Review: This is an entertaining series of books that I highly recommend. The stories are easy for first and second graders to read, and are well plotted. Something happens in every chapter, which spurs the kids on to read 'just one more'.
There are about 30 books in the MTH series, and I suspect that your kid's attraction will start to fade after about book 10. As an adult, you will be bored by book 4. But that's hardly the point. These books entertain children without patronising them and make them believe that the effort involved in reading chapter books pays off.
If you want to compare MTH with some other popular series, it's a little easier than the Horrible Harry series and more complex than Amber Brown and Junie B Jones. JBJ in particular I find to be full of infuriatingly ungrammatical baby talk. I wouldn't care, except that after five books' worth your kid is copying her snotty little affectations. Frankly, if I was JB's dad, she would have been packed off to the Virginia Military Grammar Academy (motto: Guns n' Grammar) already. As for Amber Brown, well she is one annoying little squirt too, but she has the shock of her life coming in 'Amber Brown is Green with Envy', so I can't be too hard on her.
Rating:
Summary: Good for begining reading, grades 1 and 2
Review: This is probably the best series to get your kid (late 1st through early 3rd grades) launched into reading chapter books. They come in sets of 4, usually focused around a theme such as needing to recover 4 books in ancient history for King Arthur's library, find one book in each adventure. But kids don't seem to get involved with these meta-plots and so the books stand on their own as simply written adventure stories.
Over time, it gets a bit formulaic and thin: Tree house appears, travel in time, get threatened by somebody/something, escape with magical help, return home. Still, your kid will be good for at least 10 books. I'd skip the earlier ones since the later are somewhat better written/produced.
Rating:
Summary: Can't Get Enough!
Review: This is the first series of chapter books my son actually wanted to read by himself. While many of the reviewers complain about grammatical errors, etc., I feel these can be overlooked as these delightful stories keep a child's interest from start to finish. Each chapter is fairly short and has frequent pictures (a must for beginning chapter readers). The main characters have all sorts of adventures and the reader actually learns some historical facts. While the books are probably too easy for advanced readers, they should appeal to most beginning chapter readers. I think it is very important that children think reading is fun and the books from The Magic Tree House Series provide a wonderful introduction to chapter book reading!
Rating:
Summary: Great Chapter Books for First, Second & Third Graders
Review: This is the first series of chapter books my son actually wanted to read by himself. While many of the reviewers complain about grammatical errors, etc., I feel these can be overlooked as these delightful stories keep a child's interest from start to finish. Each chapter is fairly short and has frequent pictures (a must for beginning chapter readers). The main characters have all sorts of adventures and the reader actually learns some historical facts. While the books are probably too easy for advanced readers, they should appeal to most beginning chapter readers. I think it is very important that children think reading is fun and the books from The Magic Tree House Series provide a wonderful introduction to chapter book reading!
Rating:
Summary: Good intro to the next level of chapter books
Review: This series is an interesting mix of fiction & nonfiction. Each book takes the characters (siblings Jack & Annie) to another place and/or time to get a clue to solve a mystery or challenge. The mysteries come in 4 book units, so this box set gives one full story unit. Our kids didn't really get that involved in the 'mystery' aspect, in part because we were getting them mostly from the library, which never seemed to have all 4 of a given mystery group. What they enjoyed was that it was a good easy chapter book, with many subjects or topics that were interesting to them. I would agree with the reviewer who complained about the standard of writing- it's not great- and would add that if your child is particularly well-versed in a topic in one of the books they are likely to find that they know more than is presented in the story. I would put these squarely at 1st grade level... The Boxcar children are regularly threatened by rather sinister types, and because the stories are seen to be more current, it can seem more frightening than something that is clearly happening in another time- Pharoic Egypt, dinosaurs, etc.).
Rating: 
Summary: Grammar Lessons
Review: Though I like the idea of the adventures of Jack and Annie, I was thoroughly disappointed in the improper use of grammar throughout the series. There are dangling prepositional phrases throughout the text. Proper grammar in what a child reads is critical to their learning curve, and I cannot imagine that such errors were acceptable to the editors and publishers at Scholastic.
Rating:
Summary: Grammar Lessons
Review: Though I like the idea of the adventures of Jack and Annie, I was thoroughly disappointed in the improper use of grammar throughout the series. There are dangling prepositional phrases throughout the text. Proper grammar in what a child reads is critical to their learning curve, and I cannot imagine that such errors were acceptable to the editors and publishers at Scholastic.
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