Author Brandon Mull, with his descriptive writing takes us to a world where there are preserves full of magical and mythical creatures, both good and evil.  In his book Fablehaven, which is first in a series of five, we join brother and sister, Seth and Kendra, as they unknowingly travel to one of these preserves to visit their grandparents.  Their grandparents are the caretakers of this magical world and unwillingly, but out of necessity, introduce their grandchildren to it and its dangers.  We read as they have their eyes opened and then deal with the knowledge of this hidden world. Along the way they make mistakes and don’t heed advice or some of the rules, but they also deal with the consequences, which as a parent I appreciate this as well as the fact that they grow from these mistakes. 
The book is written with very descriptive language that allowed me to get lost in this new world, but it was not too difficult of a read, so my children enjoyed getting lost as well.  Being Mull’s first book, I think he started out well, but certainly had room to improve in his character development and prose. However, he does improve greatly over the run of the series and truly makes this magical world come alive.

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language:  None

Violence/Gore:  A few prolonged scenes of fantasy type violence with evil magical creatures like witches, demons and others attacking the humans, however, there is no blood and gore; one character shoots a gun toward some evil creatures; characters turned into animals; character turned to stone.

Sex/Nudity: Brief sentence of how character was naked after turning back into a human.

Mature Subject Matter:

Death of family members; good vs evil conflicts

Alcohol / Drug Use:

Brief description of a lotus blossom that acts as a hallucinogen.