The Treehouse Chapter Books Offer Ever-Expanding Fun

Do you have a young reader, just getting their reading feet under them, who is ready to move on to something a bit more challenging than, say, Captain Underpants, but who still needs something unintimidating and funny, with lots of illustrations? Invite them to visit the wonderful treehouse that’s the star of an Australian series, written by Andy Griffiths, and illustrated by Terry Denton—these books are exactly the right next step!
Andy and Terry are two kids who live in a treehouse. Not just any tree house, but one of epic proportions that keeps growing as they add new and marvelous features. It starts as a mere 13-Story Treehouse (the first book), with a bowling alley, a secret lab, a shark tank, and a machine that shoots marshmallows into your mouth, and as it grows to a 26-Story Treehouse, then a 39-Story Treehouse, and now a 52-Story Treehouse (out April 5)! As it grows, Andy and Terry add a bumper car rink, a dinosaur petting zoo, a maze of doom, an active volcano and a chocolate waterfall (and much, much more)!

But Andy and Terry can’t spend their whole time enjoying the entertainments their treehouse offers. They are constantly working under tight deadlines to get the books they write and illustrate to their publisher. And when adventures like a predatory sea monster, pirates, or a book-writing machine that goes rogue, break the peace, meeting book deadlines gets very tricky indeed….especially when, in The 52-Story Treehouse, their publisher, Mr. Big-Nose, disappears!

Andy and Terry make a great team, and the supporting characters, who include a flock of flying cats, add to the fun mix. Each story, though filled with fantastic diversions, has narrative coherence and a point. The wild and wacky adventures are generously illustrated with the sorts of funny and detailed pictures that kids could will spend a long time enjoying, and which may well inspire them to draw treehouses of their own. The books, both words and pictures, are full of the sort of humor that kids love–slapstick, a bit gross, a little macabre, and sometimes downright scary, but it all works out in the end. The scary bits (most notably the killer sea monster disguised as a beautiful mermaid in the first book) might be too much for a sensitive younger child, but for less sensitive readers the strange and the dangerous add a nice splash of tension.

This series is a huge hit in its homeland of Australia, where the treehouse has now reached 65 stories, and the books are, with good reason, gaining lots of fans in the US as well.  They are an excellent pick for emerging and reluctant readers, or any young reader who wants a fun read.
The 39-Story Treehouse and The 52-Story Treehouse will be in stores on April 5!