I thought it a good book for a boy of 10 with no brothers, a dead father, a curious and mischievous mind.
Hmm, I went from reading nothing, learned by the first grade, and then onto Hardy Boys and Tom Swift. Then onto the old Marvel comics like the Fantastic Four and the X-Men.
My dad used to open a box and let me read through as many as I could polish off in his collection. Then he’d open up another box.
I don’t ever really remember ‘advancing’ in reading, I just read everything I got my hands on. By grade 8 I was getting into Heinlein and Asimov, and by then I could read anything you could throw at me. I’m pretty sure that by grade 6 I could have done the same, but I wasn’t all that interested in reading ‘difficult’ stuff just for the sake of reading difficult stuff. Like I said I read anything and everything I could get my hands on.