I have an eight year old who can read really well but normally prefers to be read too and play computer games by herself. But she saw this book on Blue Peter (when it won "best book with pictures" and asked for it. I started reading it to her in the evening but she couldn't wait for me to read a bit at a time and took it off me and read it non-stop - on the bus to school, in the playground - anywhere! She's not a girly girl - she's like mysteries, aliens and monsters and this serves up all these with a heavy slice of humour, short chapters and lots of lists and crazy statistics. She's now asked me to order the next in the series...