Simon & Schuster The Thirteen Treasures

I first read this book about twelve years ago and absolutely loved it. A little while ago I decided to buy a copy for my little cousin (since I could not find mine) and came across this. The book itself is of very good quality. Would recommend!

I am reading this book for the second time - this time to my second daughter, aged 9. She loves it and so do I - and I'm a 55-year-old dad, possibly not the kind of reader Michelle Harrison intended the book for. The plotline you can get from other reviews, but I just wanted to say it's an extremely well crafted book, with cliff hangers and twists and turns that make it very difficult for me to stop reading to my daughter, who insists I carry on once I get to the end of a chapter. It can get a bit scary for a 9-year-old (but in a Doctor-Who-hide-behind-the-cushion kind of way), so I'm now reading it to her in the morning before she goes to school rather than in the evening before she goes to bed. But my first daughter is less easily frightened and it was never a problem for her at that age. She went on to read the next two books in the series on her own (always a good sign) but I think I'll be reading them aloud to my younger daughter. And I'm looking forward to that just as much as she is. A great read, and one which the publishers should make an audiobook of - it would work really well.PS We've just finished it and my daughter has pulled the second book in the series off the shelf and begged me to read it to her because she is desperate to find out what happens next and she wants 'to share it with' me. Great stuff.

My daughter got given A Pinch of Magic, also written by Michelle Harrison, for her 8th birthday. We loved it. So we looked up another of her books and purchased The Thirteen Treasures. I was expecting it to be equally as good as the other one but it took quite a while to get into it. We persevered with it and it has now got us interested but it is quite dark; fairies that are mean, goblins that beat each other up, a missing child, talk of suicide (which I managed to leave out and change to just died) I even wondered if I should stop reading it at bedtime, but my daughter begs to read it every night. So possibly too scary for some 8yr olds and I would say the rating for 10 yr olds is probably accurate. Just going to see how we go to whether we buy the next book.

I loved 13 Treasures by Michelle Harrison! So much so, that I read it in one day even though it was nearly 400 pages long. If you take nothing else away from this review, please take away that this story is amazing. I loved it, and I can't wait for Sis to venture out of Judy Moody and Junie B Jones so that she can love this one too. Because I know that she will, love it I mean. It's just THAT good.I've been staring at this page for days. Trying to decide what to say and not say in this review. I want to tell you enough that you WILL pick up this book. Without telling you so much that there is no need to. It's a fine line reviewers walk, and I hate it. Spoilers. To tell or not to tell? As a reader, I hate reading them, so as a book blogger - I hate including them. So here I sit, staring at a blank page, wondering what I can type here to make you pick up this series.Lets start with the world Michelle Harrison has created. I loved it. So descriptive, and real. I could smell the dusty musk and old cat inside Elvesden Manor. I could feel the damp sticky thickness of the air in Hangman Wood. I didn't even have to close my eyes and try. It just felt that real. I loved, no - I absolutely loved, that the fairies in this story are not the sweet little Tinkerbell fairies. Brian Froud is one of my favorite illustrators, and his faeries are just amazing. Scary, and tricksie, and spiteful, and sarcastic, and... those are the faeries we find in this story. The world was amazing.I said on Goodreads that I felt like I was reading Spiderwick, but with girls. I loved Spiderwick! Everything was magical and felt real.For the characters, omgosh.Tanya, the main character, a little girl who nobody "gets" (because she could see faeries) and because of it keeps getting shuffled around to give her mum a break. I so connected with her, right from page one. Heck, I was HER. No, I don't see faeries. But I was that kid that got shuffled around. That was me. So from page one, I got Tanya, and I cared for her.Fabian, guh. He totally brought out the 13 year old girl in me. He got on my nerves, made me roll my eyes, and in the end made me cry. Stupid boys. =DI loved Warwick. A) Warwick is the actor of one of my favorite movie characters of all time! WILLOW anyone?! B) He totally reminded me of my Pepaw. Understated, grunting and growling instead of speaking sentences... LoL. I really liked him, even though I wasn't supposed to. In my head, I totally saw Joaquin Phoenix as Warwick. I know, I know, just hear me out. Not hot sexy, I'd leave my husband for, SIGNS and THE VILLAGE, Joaquin. No, no. Scary, dirty, sad, but underneath we know there is something amazing, I'M A RAPPER, Joaquin. *sigh* yes, even through his nasty phase, I probably would have still left my husband for him. shhhhh... thats just between us though. haha.Red, omgosh, Red. I loved her. LOVED her. She made me think of the little girl they saved in Aliens. All crazy looking and in the end the smartest one in the bunch and steps up to the plate to save the day. She was just awesome.And as for the story...Faeries are tricksie! Bottom line, and I don't want to say much more than that.Well, that and I loved this book

I read this to my 8 year old daughter (might be a bit too scary for some of this age) and we both thoroughly enjoyed what is a dark and gripping tale. As in the tradition of all good thrillers you were nearly always left in suspence at the end of each chapter and therefore eager to read on. I felt it might have been improved with more background info' on some of the charcters and plot lines, but possibly this would slowed the pace too much.