I think I need to reset my expectations. These Early Readers are a little flat on plot and character development. But they are indeed good easy readers...."The cat is fat....the dog is old....the dog cannot chase the cat....and so on....." We read together...mostly Emerson reading the words and sounding out some he doesn't know...and the fun is in looking at the pictures and then also asking retention questions about the sentences. I ask follow up questions like, "why do you think the dog can't catch the cat?" His retention is improving.