I think the books are so cute and the illustrations are great. BTW- here is a web site I love as much as the books:
Hey, that's a very good music site! Music is the one area of study that my kids have been missing out on...
Maybe I'll interest my middle son in Spiderwick. He's 8 but has been resisting the longer books, but I think he'd like those stories and they'd be a good introduction to longer reading.