Actually my 9-year-old son is excited to read this book on his own, but I just couldn't bring myself to sit down and wade through it. TOO many words, too much information. The sidebars were distracting and LONG (no Mom will want to read these to the little ones at night) and the rest of the text lacked the flow necessary to a well-crafted picture book. Much of the text was repeated in the illustrations. Had there been one more good hard edit after the illustrations were complete, I think this books would have been better and more marketable. AS it is, I'm sure my son will read part of it, flip through to look at the pictures, then call himself done.